After I took Bryn's Introduction to Modern Script Calligraphy class a few months ago, I was so excited about my new hobby that I purchased a bunch of colorful inks to play around with. For some reason, when I buy new art supplies, it takes me awhile to actually dive in (probably out of intimidation). I'm glad this class gave me a reason to try them out!

I started out by using this Canson XL notebook for pen and ink. I trusted the brand because I use their other papers all the time, but it didn't work well for this project!

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 1 - student project

The ink feathered and I found myself re-dipping my pen more often...

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 2 - student project

And the bleed-through was terrible!

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 3 - student project

So I switched over to a Rhodia paper pad--specifically, Rhodia #18 dotpad. I fell in LOVE with the paper immediately! It was bright white, smooth, only ghosted slightly without bleeding, and my ink dried so quickly! I will be using Rhodias for calligraphy from now on!

Day 1: Essential Stroke Fitness

This exercise was SO therapeutic to do. I was actually disappointed when I finished all the strokes! For my sentence, I chose the popular pangram: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 4 - student project

Day 2: Traditional Exercises

I really loved watching my ink change from an orange to a light yellow as I wrote with it. Some of the letter connections were pretty challenging! I had to remind myself that I could pick up the pen if I needed to.

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 5 - student project

Day 3: Slants and Spacing

Like Day 1's exercise, I found this one so relaxing. I found myself writing to the music I was listening to. (Note to self: Maybe I should try zentangle!)

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 6 - student project

Day 4: Creative Break

I couldn't think of what to write, so I made a list of the supplies I was using, pangrams (sentences with every letter of the alphabet), and palindromes (sentences that are the same forwards and backwards).

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 7 - student project

Day 5: Tackling Capital Letters

Capital letters are my biggest weakness! I hated them when I was learning cursive, and I struggle with them now in script calligraphy. There were so many I disliked that I tried to come up with as many different versions as I could think of.

EDIT: I just realized I forgot my sentence of the day--oops!

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 8 - student project

Day 6: Mood Meets Tool

Soooo... I know the challenge was to use different tools, but I just really wanted to continue practicing with my dip pen. I found this one really challenging because I couldn't imagine fonts that expressed the adjectives. My favorites were "playful" and "elengant".

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 9 - student project

Day 7: Flourishing

Flourishing is something I've always admired in other artists' work, but was always afraid to try it myself.

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 10 - student project

Day 8: Alphabet Collage

I combined both lowercase and uppercase letters for this collection. I kind of wish I filled the entire page with different fonts and styles!

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 11 - student project

Day 9: Playing with Style

I never knew O's and N's determine the rest of the alphabet! I really enjoyed the exercise where we had to manipulate the same word in different ways. I think the different renditions of "calligraphy" turned out really nicely!

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 12 - student project

Day 10: Breaking Habits

This photo's in a different format because I used metallic ink and it was too reflective. This was such a fun challenge! #1 really confused my brain (I have NEVER written with a left-slant before) and I was really impressed with #8--I didn't know I could write so well with my eyes closed!

Colorful Calligraphy Challenge (Completed!) - image 13 - student project

Thanks for the fun challenge, Bryn! My calligraphy really did improve over the 10 days, and I feel much more confident using pen and ink now. Excited to keep playing with my colorful supplies!

Cloris Chou

student for life

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