Calligraphy is a type of writing that everybody who cares about their handwriting wants to emulate. And the great thing is that you can use different writing tools to get different beautiful calligraphy effects. You can even use markers to achieve nice calligraphy writing. Here’s how to write with a calligraphy marker and make beautiful strokes.
What is Calligraphy?
Calligraphy is actually an ancient form of writing. The word is formed from the Greek word “kallos” and “graphe,” which respectively mean “beauty” and “writing or drawing.” Calligraphy is an art style that is beyond making letters look nice.
Calligraphers have five goals when writing calligraphy. The goals are integrity, harmony, ancestry, rhythm, and creativity. Without getting too much into the details of calligraphy, here are short meanings of the five goals.
Integrity is the admirable form and proportion of the symbols in the text.
Harmony shows the satisfying relationships between all the visual elements – the letters, numbers, symbols, or even the space around them.
Ancestry speaks about the heritage of the symbols, materials, or techniques used by calligraphers.
Rhythm is the repetition or the variation in spacing and marking the calligrapher uses to create patterns in the text.
Creative fire is each calligrapher’s individuality expressed in the art of calligraphy.
How to Write with a Calligraphy Marker
When people hear the word calligraphy, the first thing they think about is elaborate writing. The second thing they think about is a special pen or writing tool. To some degree, they are right.
But calligraphy is more than just elaborate writing – it’s writing each stroke of the pen with meaning. And you can use pretty much any writing tool for calligraphy; you just need the proper techniques.
I developed my techniques for writing calligraphy using a marker. Here’s how I do it.
Get the Right Marker
When getting a suitable marker, there’s only one thing I look for: the shape of the tip. I don’t care about the ink color or the material of the tip. As long as the tip is chiseled-shape, I can write calligraphy with it.
But there are other options. Any marker with a non-rounded tip is sufficient; you can learn to write calligraphy with it. Markers with a conical tip, for example, are really effective in writing calligraphy.
Experimenting with Angles
Here’s what any calligrapher can agree on: the angle at which you hold the writing tool is ESSENTIAL to calligraphy. There are even calligraphy pens that require you to hold it at a specific angle for it to write.
“But you can write with a marker at any angle, can’t you?”
I hear you ask. Yes, you can. But by maintaining a specific angle when writing with a marker, you can create rhythms, harmony, integrity, and ancestry – which are essential in calligraphy. Plus, experimenting with your unique angle of holding the marker adds that creative fire that shows your individuality.
In other words, you don’t just want to create elaborate letters when writing with a calligraphy marker. You want to make actual calligraphy with all of its deep and rich nuances. And that begins by getting the technique right. Writing with the proper angle is at the core of calligraphy.
“At what angle should I hold the marker?”
I hear you ask next. I specifically mentioned the chiseled-tip marker. And if you try writing with it at different angles, you should notice that it produces narrow and broad strokes.
But if you maintain one specific angle throughout your writing, you will notice that all the same letters have the same broad and narrow parts. You begin to see the harmony, rhythm, and integrity of your calligraphy.
Taking Measurements
If you don’t yet have a good sense of space, I emphatically suggest taking measurements and marking your paper. Don’t be afraid to use a ruler and a light pencil. Measuring your writing area might not seem very artistic, but it’s essential for building your skills.
In calligraphy, you want to create uniformity, which is the integrity of the symbols. In your experimenting with angles stage, I suggest taking the time to take measurements of the width of your strokes and the height of your writing. This practice will help you create a more balanced and harmonic calligraphy writing.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Calligraphy writing with any tool is an art form. And just like any art, it takes a lot of perfect practice to obtain perfection. Here are the areas I encourage you to practice:
Practice basic calligraphy drills. Practice different strokes while maintaining the angle that works best for you. Practice downward strokes, upward strokes, left-to-right strokes, right-to-left strokes. Practice curves, horizontal lines, and rounded lines (like the tail of the letter g). You can get tons of calligraphy practice sheets online. Or you can create your own forms to add to your creative fire.
Practice your symbols. Practice writing your characters over and over again. Repetition is the key to creating integrity, harmony, and rhythm. Practice the letters in lower and upper case. Practice writing numbers. Practice writing punctuations.
Practice forming words. Build up your practice by forming connected symbols. Practice creating words while maintaining the right angle and the proper measurements of the characters.
Conclusion
Calligraphy is not just elaborate writing. It is an art form that is purposeful, meaningful, rich, and highly nuanced. Thankfully, it is also adaptive. You can write beautiful calligraphy using markers. You can create calligraphy with integrity, harmony, ancestry, rhythm, and your own creative fire.
These tips on how to write with a calligraphy marker give you the foundation for forming your own calligraphy skills with a marker. Stick to these basic principles. Get the marker that gives you unique broad and narrow strokes. Experiment with angles that results in varied writing. Take measurements for more balanced-looking writing. And when you get the results you want, practice, practice, practice your calligraphy writing.