Modern Calligraphy for Beginners using a Brush Pen

1. Introduction: Hi there, I'm Torryn. And in this class, I'll take you through the basic elements of starting a modern calligraphy practice using a brush pen. We will cover the supplies, postures, pressures, and strokes needed to form each letter and learn how to write the entire alphabet in a simple modern calligraphy style. By the end of this course, you will be able to create beautiful writing for all sorts of projects. Whether it be quotes for display in the home, invitations, birthday cards, journal titles, or Blackboard advertisements. There are so many uses for your new found practice. So join me and some letter loving friends in this class, and I hope you enjoy every minute of the process. 2. Welcome & Supplies: Hi there, I'm Torryn and welcome to this beginner friendly modern calligraphy class. I'm here to introduce you to the basics of learning to write beautiful modern calligraphy using a brush pen. Thank you so much for coming to learn with me, and I hope it helps you to enjoy this fun creative practice. Before we get started, I'll let you know the supplies you're going to need. Firstly, we need some paper. Dot grid or lined paper is best for practice. You could just use regular printer paper if that's all you have around and you just want to get started. In the resources section of this video, I've provided all three of these. A dot a grid and aligned PDF that you can print out onto paper. If you didn't want to buy a work pad, then we'll need a brush pen. My recommendations are the Tombow Fudenosuke soft tip, preferably. The pentel sign brush or a Pitt Artist brush pen. These pens have a nice flexible tip that is easy to achieve. Thick and thin brushstrokes in just the right places. And with those and a nice flat surface to work on, we're ready to get started. 3. Anatomy of Calligraphy: When holding your pen, you want it to feel as comfortable as possible while positioning your hand a little further up the barrel so that it touches the paper at about a 45-degree angle. When you hold the pen like this up further, it means that when you're putting more pressure on it, most of the side of the brush tip is actually going to touch the paper, which will give you that nice thick down-stroke. When writing, try to use minimal movement in your wrist and really tried to relax and just use your elbow and shoulder to make your strokes. I'm now going to show you the basic structure of modern calligraphy so that you have an understanding of what each element is as we go through the class, starting with our baseline. This is the level where the base of our letters sit. Now most of the time this will be straight and even along the words. But as you develop in your practice, you might like to start including staggered baselines. It looks something like this. This is known as bounce calligraphy. The midline or sometimes called the x-height or waistline, is where the main part of our lowercase letters finish. Some letters, however, extend above this line, so we call those ascenders. So the top line represents the level where those letters finish. Other letters extend below the baseline and they are known as descenders. So this final line at the bottom represents the level where they generally finish. Upstrokes are the thin lines that are created when your hand is moving in an upward direction. Downstrokes are the thick lines that are created when your hand is moving downward towards you. A swash is the flowy extensions from letters, which we will only be touching on in this class. Once you feel ready to learn more about flourishing calligraphy, I have another video coming where I will teach you more about this. I love that with modern calligraphy, nothing is absolute, it is an art form and that means you can adapt all these things to suit what you like the look of. The fundamentals are important to know when starting. But then as you develop the tweaking of these elements, I think are what will make your lettering more interesting. 4. Basic Strokes: These practice strokes are the building blocks of what modern calligraphy is made up of. By practicing these on a regular basis, you will build muscle memory in your hand for the strokes and movements needed to create each letter. You'll also see your writing look more consistent as you develop a rhythm. How to create each turn and look. So here are the eight basic strokes you'll want to practice. The Upstroke using very gentle pressure to make a stroke moving in an upward direction. The Downstroke using a firm pressure to create a stroke moving downwards in direction towards you. The overturn. Combining a gentle pressure, moving upwards, curving over the top into a firm pressure downwards. The Undeturn the exact opposite. A firm pressure, I'm moving downward, curving around the base into a gentle pressure upwards. The Compound Curve. Combine the last two turns to form one unit. Gentle up, firm down, and gentle up again. The Oval, starting near the midline with a firm pressure, curving down, then transferring into a gentle pressure to bring the next curve to meet the top. The Ascender loop, starting with a gentle pressure near the mid-line, curving upwards and looping down into a firm pressure downstroke to the baseline. And lastly the Descender loop, the opposite to the last, starting with a firm pressure near the mid-line, curving around and looping up into a gentle pressure to meet at the baseline. Now that we have done our basic strokes, we can move on to learning about the lower-case alphabet, which are broken down into groups of letters that are similar to practice. 5. Lowercase Alphabet - Compound Curve Letters: Starting with the letters that contain compound curves, like from our basic strokes. Going through these letters together feels easier to get a flow happening as you're practicing the same basic stroke in each letter over and over. So starting with an overturn and then a compound curve. Remembering to keep in mind those pressures of gentle upstroke and firm on the downstroke. The m is very similar. Start with an overturn, then another overturn, and then a compound curve. The letter U uses similar shapes. It is basically the reverse and you're doing two underturns linked together so underturn, and then another underturn. The letter V uses the underturn basic stroke. And instead of ending it where we did before, you continue up and form a little loop to end that letter. The w is very similar to the v you're going to do one underturn, then another underturn that ends in that same little loop. The letter X is a bit different to the others. I feel like it's still a compound curve, but it's just really stretched out and elongated. So the first stroke is a thick downstroke, a stretched out compound curve, and then a light upstroke to cross that x. The last letter in this group is the letter Y. And this starts with an underturn and then a descending loop to finish off the tail of that letter. As you can see, I'm practicing each of these letters a few times to really get the hang of each letter and how it should form. But by mixing up the sizes and placements of those compound curves, you can really make each letter look very different. So this is what I'm showing here. I'm adjusting slightly the spacing and the length or heights of each curve. And it really makes a big difference. So this is where you discover what you like best. Now we've finished this first group of letters. We can move on to the next group, which focuses on the oval shape. 6. Lowercase Alphabet - Oval Letters: Using the oval-shaped from our basic strokes, we tweak it slightly to be the main focus of this next group of letters, starting with the letter a. Now this is your basic oval stroke, but the bonus is you don't need to worry about it meeting up perfectly at your starting point, because as soon as you finish it, you will add a nice strong underturn right on top of it. This forms the letter a. Now for the letters c, this is your oval basic stroke, but just don't connect the two ends together. The e is very similar to the c, except your starting point just curl slightly inwards towards the downstroke. Now for the letter D, this one uses the complete basic letter oval stroke and then combines the ascending loop next to it. The g feels exactly opposite to that. So I start again with the full basic stroke of the oval and then put the descending loop right next to it to form the g. The q starts with the full oval stroke and then bring it down strokes next to it, and curl it back upwards on itself to create the tail and kick of the q so that it doesn't look like a backwards P. Now we have the letter o. I like to almost break this oval up and start at the top, near the midline in a downstroke that curves around and up using gentle pressure before it swings into another little loop at the top that will then be able to connect to the letter next to it when you're writing. Here is some variations of those letters. And by just changing simple sizes or placement can really change the look of each letter. After you feel confident on these letters, we can move on to the letters that contain ascending loops. 7. Lowercase Alphabet - Ascending Loop Letters: Now we practice the letters that have ascending loops. And our first one is the simplest, which is the letter L. This is a lot like your basic stroke ascending loop. But when you reach the bottom, you'll be up turning it so that it's ready to connect to the letter next to it. Letter b is for some reason my favorite letter to do. And this starts with an ascending loop and then adds a reversed oval. Or maybe even you could describe it as an overturn that has a crossing exit stroke. The next one is the letter f that starts with the ascending loop, then continues in one motion up to the midline where there's a small loop that forms the crossbar of the F. The next letter is the letter K. This starts with the ascending loop and then brings a loop out from the middle and then a little leg that kicks down beneath the baseline. This letter, you can do several ways. I'll show you some different ones at the end of this group. For the final ascending letter, we have another one of my favorite letters. This one is letter H for some reason, And I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but the word I write constantly, if ever I'm mindlessly writing is 'hello' It's just the h that seems to flow out of me when beginning to practice calligraphy or even just testing a pen. But yeah, I love this letter and it's one of my favorites. So starting with the ascending loop and then a compound curve right next to it. Now to show you some variations of each of those letters. Next we can take a look at the letters that have a downstroke as the central focus. 8. Lowercase Alphabet - Downstroke Letters: I grouped these letters together because I feel that the downstroke is quite prominent on them. The first letter is the letter I. This is very similar to the underturn as we practiced, and then it just has a dot on the top. The next letter is the letter T that has the long downstroke or the stem of the T, and then a thin crossbar. The letter J is a descending loop from our basic strokes, and then with a dot on the top. Then this last letter is the letter p, which starts with the strong downstroke and ends in one of those loops that we did for the B. So it's kind of like an overturn that crosses over at the exit stroke. Here I'm showing some more variations of these particular letters. You might see one that you like more to practice here. Once you've tried these ones, we can move on to the final group of lower-case alphabet letters, which mainly have a focus on the upstroke. 9. Lowercase Alphabet - Upstroke Letters: These last letters in this group don't really fall into the other categories. So I just call them upstroke letters as I feel they are quite thin and rely on the upstroke to start each letter. This first letter is the letter R, officially the strangest letter to be riding in calligraphy. Lots of different ways to do it. But this way is my personal favorite using the soft upstroke into a loop that's on top of the midline and then bringing it down into that under turn. Then for the letter S, starting with that thin upstroke, then curving your way down and over to form the s. Now for the final letter, the letter z, a letter, I feel that is like no other it does start with this soft upstroke. It can be sharp. You can do a sharp version, or you can do this soft flowing version. I personally prefer this very curvy one, but it is up to you and there are lots of different variations. So do keep that in mind. Now, during your practice, you might want to keep rotating the barrel of your pen every so often just to stop the tip from getting bent out of shape. Now this alphabet that we've gone through, It's a really nice simple one that I use to get started. There are an infinite number out there and every one can be different if you slightly adjust sizes and the placement of these elements. I'll show you a few different variations of these last few letters. And then we can move on to the uppercase alphabet. 10. Uppercase Alphabet: The uppercase letters are usually where a few fancy elements come into play, but this one in particular is still a pretty understated style and is great for beginners. So feel free to watch me go through the full alphabet and then give it a practice and see how you go. I hope you found that easy to follow along with and that it helped you out with your capital letters. And now it's time to move on to connecting letters to form words. 11. Connecting Letters: Now we're going to talk about connecting letters in your calligraphy to form words. Most connections probably feel pretty natural. And I think mainly your instincts come into play here. But a few examples. I'll show are how different pairs of letters connect. Most connect with a diagonal upstroke. It's not actually one continuous line though, as we usually take our pen off between strokes. It's just giving the illusion of a connection. This kind of connection can be seen in the letters ni, do, or to, as I'm showing you here. Another kind of connection is where a letter ends at the midline instead of the baseline, like the o, the v, the F, or the w. And what I like to do here is add a little loop join. But sometimes certain letters just won't benefit from that kind of connection. So the letters o and F, I find a little bit on the trickiest side. So what I do here is I keep my loop on the O. And then when I'm going to attempt the loop on the FBI, cut it short and don't loop, it just meet the tail and I think it just gives a neater effect. So sometimes you just have to go with what you've got and what feels right. It's not a steadfast rule that os always have to have an exit loop. Things like that to be considered. You can always get rid of the loop on the O. And you could do the loop on the F. Instead, it is completely up to you. When the letter W connects with an E, for example, you could just meet it right next to the loop. But I personally prefer to connect it. So when I'm doing the w on the exit loop, I will just bring it a little bit lower to start my e straightaway and make it look very continuous through there. Then it's very similar with the V, the exit stroke of this you can just meet it up like in this first option. Or you can bring the vs loop and actually connect it right up to the midline where you're about to start your next letter. And I just personally think this looks a little bit neater and more legible as well. Then lastly is when letters join from a descending loop. Now you can just keep it simple where it's going to be by itself. So you just finished your descending loop and draw the next letter right next to it. This is your first option. The next option is to draw the descending loop. But instead of ending at way, you would normally just lift that exit stroke slightly so that it's ending at the beginning of your next letter. So that, that there's a seamless connection there between the loop and the next letter. I personally think this just looks really nice and connected. And it gives you that feeling of it all being a continuous motion through the word itself. Something special that I love to do with my calligraphy is actually not connecting the descending loop to any letter. So to leave it floating beneath your word, and by not being connected, it becomes more of a feature and really an intentional arty element to the word. Now I'm going to end this connection clip by showing you some words that I've put together using all those elements that we've just discussed. And now I'll see you in the following clip to talk about our class activity. 12. Congratulations & Class Activity: So now that we've gone through the alphabet in this style and you've practiced connecting letters together. The next thing to do is start writing words. So as the class activity I would love it if you would go ahead and create a piece where you write your star sign using what you've learned in this class. I'll attach mine as a reference and can't wait to see what you guys create. Please post a photo when you're done on here or even on Instagram if you prefer, don't forget to tag me with @torrynmarieart so I can see your progress. I hope to see you again in a future class and really hope this will help you in whatever way you plan on using your new craft. Thank you so much. I hope you had fun. See you next time.