Five Fab & Free Online Resources for Calligraphy
I think that it is all too apparent that I have a new found love for hand lettering! I mean I literally can’t go a day without thinking about it. I had always believed that to get really good at modern calligraphy you need to spend hours and hours patiently working on your letterforms, flourishes and penmanship. Time that I simply wouldn’t have to dedicate to something new. In the very brief time that I have been working on my hand lettering skills I have come to realise that this is very true. There isn’t a quick overnight fix that will suddenly have the ink flowing over the page in the most elegant and stylish manner. Yes – this my friends is a slow burn skill. But, I also realised that the practise is not the chore that I had expected it to be.
I was under the impression that this was the type of creative pastime that would only really become fun once I’d mastered it. How wrong I was. The process of learning is incredibly relaxing and rewarding. I don’t find that I have to force myself to sit and work on the letterforms, far from it. I have found that I am continually looking at ways in which I can fit in a little practise each day. Squeezing in an hour here and even a quick ten minutes there!
Learning is fun, discovering new things is always going to be one of my favourite things to do.
I am lucky enough to be enrolled on to the Molly Jacques Skillshare Modern Calligraphy course – and just as soon as I’m done I’ll share a class review with y’all. But, in the meantime, I thought that I would share some of the great (and free!) Online Resources for Calligraphers in the making!
1 Crash Course 
This is a fantastic introduction to learning elegant penmanship – and if you are prepared to put in some practice time you can learn Calligraphy in a week with Julie Blanner’s How To Learn Calligraphy in 5 Days series
2 Fabulous Flourishes
Designer and master calligrapher, Lindsey Bugbee’s free Flourish Alphabet Worksheet is ideal for adding some elegant charm to your lettering.
3 Calligraphy Community
The Flourish Forum is an online community bringing together calligraphers, from beginners right through to experts. Registration to the forum is free and will allow you to view and post on the forum boards and also access a wealth of free calligraphy tutorials.
4 Glorious Guides
Alongside the letterforms the placement and position of each letter is key to elegant calligraphy. While there are a number of pre-printed notebooks with guides for calligraphers, practice seems to burn through paper super fast. These handy diagonal cut-out guides available as a free download from The Fozzy Book are a great way to customise your own notebooks for calligraphy.
5 Excellent Exemplars
You don’t have to look to hard to find a whole host of calligraphy alphabet exemplars online. However, when you find one with a video tutorial that runs alongside it is proves a valuable tool for mastering the flow of the letters. I love this lowercase pointed pen alphabet exemplar and demo video from AntiquariaVintage
Oh! And, if you’re a Lovely Leftie, don’t think that you aren’t able to master this beautiful creative skill – there are lots of excellent tried and testes tips over on the Flourish Forum with boards dedicated to left-handed calligraphers.
Do you have a favourite internet hangout for enhancing your lettering skills – be sure to share in the comments below! Now, let’s write something lovely today!
The post Five Fab & Free Online Resources for Calligraphy appeared first on Made Peachy.
