hey guys I'm Torryn thanks for stopping by my art channel today's video is learning the basics of
modern calligraphy so we're going to start with some practice brush strokes and then
I'll show you how to do the alphabet and in a decorative alphabet and then how you can put
it together and then even how to simulate it in case you don't have a brush pen at hand so
let's get our supplies I'll tell you what they are in a minute and I hope you enjoy and learn
some tips to help you with your writing so let's get started okay so first up the supplies we're
going to need a pencil to get you started and to practice with choose the softest pencil that
you have I'm using a 4b pencil then you need a ruler a brush pen I'm using a Tumbo food and a
soot cake don't know if I'm saying that right hopefully I am a fineliner which is just a uni
pen 0.2 nib and then some smooth paper I'm using my sketchbook and it's very nice and
smooth so it's not going to destroy any of the bristles on my newly bought brush pen and now we
can get started first let's practice the basic strokes that form each letter of the alphabet
so the first stroke that you see me doing here is the upstroke you want to use a diagonal motion and
your hand needs to be kept very soft so that you get a thin upstroke this is found on pretty much
all letters so it's definitely worth practicing it's all about the pressure that you're applying
and now on the down strokes you want to do a much harder pressure not too hard don't break
the pencil but just a very strong pressure that causes a thicker line and that's what
gives you that variation in the calligraphy now this stroke is called the overturn so
you're going to use that soft pressure as you go up in your stroke and then transition over
and down into your heavier down stroke if you keep doing these over and over that's when you
get really used to the motions and that's when your calligraphy starts to really get mastered
so just do these as often as you can and now I'm on to the under turn which is just doing the same
thing but in Reverse so you're starting on your down stroke much heavier and then transitioning
up into your soft upstroke now we're moving on to the compound curve that's when you're
blending those two motions together so starting soft going up turning over and bringing a harder
stroke down and then turning over again and transitioning into a soft upstroke now we're
on to the ovals now these you want to start on the right-hand side of your oval but only
a little bit down so it's not right at the top of your oval and then you want to bring your
heavy stroke as you're moving down so whenever you're moving your pencil downwards it's going
to be applying more pressure whenever you're going upwards in a stroke it's going to be less pressure
so now I'm just going to show you how I'm doing it
with the brush pen so going up in soft motions down in harder motions
now once you've done all these strokes you just keep practicing and practicing until your hand
feels warmed up and ready to go confidently into moving on to the letters onto the basic alphabet
so now we're just going to practice each and every letter of the alphabet using the strokes
that we've just been practicing what you'll see here is I'm actually using my sketchbook but
I've lined up my paper in basically four lines that are equal distance apart giving you three
spaces so you've got the X height which is your letter range in the middle and you've got the
ascending and the descending heights at the both top and bottom lines so this is just a guide for
you to get used to how far each letter comes up and drops down below those X height lines so as
you can see here whenever I'm doing an upstroke I'm using very light pressure and whenever I roll
into the down stroke I'm increasing the pressure on the brush I'm also holding my brush at like
a 45 degree angle to the page that just helps you get more control and it allows your hand
to evenly apply the pressure so that you're not getting lumps and bumps throughout your letters
if you wanted to practice this on a grid paper or pre lined paper that would definitely be a
good idea but I actually wanted to do this in my sketchbook just for filming purposes but yeah if
you're at home and you've got lined paper or a grid paper that would be the best option I think
when you're practicing so that you don't need to spend the time lining up your paper first
now that I've done this basic alphabet I'm going to show you how it looks when you add a little
bit more flair to it on each individual letter so here on the B I'm doing some extra curves
and rotations just making each letter look a little bit fancier and this is where you
can really explore your own personal tastes so I like things looking a little bit more curly
and so you'll see me here doing that on just about every letter please don't forget that
if you're enjoying this video give it a thumbs up down below and if you want to check out how
I use this calligraphy in my bullet journal for February I'll link that down in the description
box below and then hit that subscribe button so you can stay up to date with all the videos
that I've release so once you've worked out the entire alphabet and you found what letters work
for you in what styles how many curls you've got how much thickness you like then you can
really start playing around with actual words you can try and link all these techniques together
to form words here I'm showing you an example of little phrase that I've created for these purposes
simple beautiful lettering so this is something you can do at home just choose something that
has some letters that you love to draw I don't know if I'm the only one that likes particular
letters more than other letters but this had a lot of my favorites in it like s's and bees
now on to bounce lettering so we kept the baseline of all our letters on the same plane
before following the same line to get that very whimsical kind of look happening in if you're
going to do a card or a poster you actually want to bounce the lettering up from different baseline
heights so as you can see here what I'm doing is continuing to write the same way I was before but
instead of starting each letter at the same point I'm just moving it up or down each time to give it
that kind of bouncing motion you see this used a lot through Instagram posters or if you were
on Pinterest looking at quotes in calligraphy you'll see this a lot it just gives it more of
a effortless kind of look to it so yeah I love to bounce hence what I chose to write
and then I felt that I couldn't see it enough so I just wanted to show you what it would be like
on a long word so I've done a very decorative see here and then I'm showing you the calligraphy all
on one level and then it's dropping down for a few of the letters keeping lots of curly lines
making it feel very decorative and you really get a sense of that whimsical feeling I think anyway
so here I'm just pointing out how this is almost done on a wavy base line instead of keeping that
straight line you see how each of my letters kind of jumps up from the original X height so you're
kind of compiling it in a way that looks beautiful now it's time to simulate calligraphy if you
don't have a brush pen or you're just not feeling confident in it this is a really easy way to get
your text to look like a liquor fee when you're just using a fine liner so start out writing your
word as you would in a calligraphy or cursive script using those same letter formations that
we did in the beginning rounds and then you're basically just on every down stroke thickening it
up so adding a second stroke on every down stroke and then filling that in with your fine liner so
as you can see here it's already starting to look like real calligraphy even though I started with
one simple line and I'm just thickening and as I go to be honest on most of my Bullitt
journals this is how I've done my text for months because I never had a proper brush pen and then I
finally got my tombow food in a tsuki I hope I'm saying that right I finally got that pen
and it just changed my life it made it's so much quicker like this simple word here simple took
no a few minutes whereas the previous one using the brush pen took a few seconds so if you're
willing to give up that time and you don't want to have to buy a brush pen then go for this it
has a great effect but otherwise using the brush pen just saves you time and it just feels nice
it feels like you're doing something real let me know which kind of lettering is your favorite in
the comments below whether you like the bounce or do you prefer to keep it more basic so I hope you
picked up some tips today and figured out how you can get your cursive or calligraphy hand
lettering to work for you if you did find these tips helpful let me know in the comments or if
you have anything to add for other viewers then please let me know and hopefully this is the first
of many in this series and I will see you all again in my next video thanks for watching bye