Brush pens are the casual, careless, and effortlessly cool cousins of dip pens. They’re approachable and affordable, which is why you probably spot them often on social media! Today, I’m pleased to announce that a brand-new TPK brush pen calligraphy worksheet set is now available: The Janet. The goal of the worksheet set is twofold. It will teach you how to use brush pens and how to use brush pens to write in an elegant, Copperplate-inspired calligraphy style!
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Ever since I released the Not Your Average Calligraphy Drills: Garden Edition, I’ve received several requests for instructions over how to make the flourished bee on the front. I love that bee, and I think it doubles as a beautiful piece of artwork and a killer calligraphy drill! So, today I went ahead and made a free printable Flourished Bee Calligraphy Tutorial. It’s a four-page calligraphy tutorial with step-by-step directions over how to use a dip pen to make that cool little bee!
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I first released this simple brush pen worksheet in 2015. Little did I know that it would become one of the most popular printables on TPK! With 131,500 downloads and counting, many a brush pen enthusiast has worked through the exercises in this worksheet. Today, I want to talk about what you can learn from filling out the Free Brush Pen worksheet, as well as other brush pen resources that you can take advantage of on the TPK site!Continue reading…
Sometimes, I think that hand-lettering is a little more approachable than calligraphy. Like calligraphy, hand-lettering celebrates the art of letters — but often with more familiar materials! That’s not to say that hand-lettering is easy; just that you can usually make it with any pen or pencil. Furthermore, if you can write in everyday life, you can hand-letter! You’ll just spend a little more time and concentration on each letter to do so.
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One of my big goals for this year is to create a video course to accompany every TPK calligraphy worksheet set! I mean, I know that there are people out there who can read something and immediately understand how to do it. Then, there are us mere mortals. I’ll be the first to admit that YouTube is my go-to if I want to learn how to do something, be it how to make injera (Ethiopian flatbread … if you’re looking for a nearly impossible challenge, give that a shot) or how to change color modes in Photoshop. There’s just something about videos that helps a concept to stick!
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I like the idea behind Valentine’s Day: a celebration of love. In practice, though, the day is wrought with pressure to make reservations at packed restaurants and come up with elaborate romantic gestures (which is nearly impossible when you’re new parents like we are)! Furthermore, if you’re unhappily single, February 14th isn’t the happiest day ever. All things considered, I think I’ve come up with a better celebration idea for this year: rejoice in your love for creativity by filling out the new Lovely Calligraphy Drills sheet!
For several months now, I have intended to make a short video tutorial over how to learn and create modern calligraphy. There were plenty of days when I should have filmed the tutorial, but I kept putting it off. I mean, I wanted the video to be perfect: engaging, inspirational, and informative! I knew it should include a worksheet, and I hoped to spend a lot of time editing the video. Calligraphy is my thing, the activity I love to do, and I needed to reflect that with the quality and thoughtfulness of the How to Learn and Create Modern Calligraphy video!
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Have you ever heard of calligraphy medallions? I hadn’t until early last year, when I came across a mesmerizing video on Instagram. In it, a calligrapher used a series of strokes to create an impressive circular work of art. I immediately had to make one myself! One medallion evolved into several, which culminated in a calligraphy medallions worksheet!
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Halloween has always been very big in my family. We love decorating the house with the macabre (I’ve got my Frida Kahlo skull on display) and — more importantly — getting to decorate ourselves! It’s freeing to step out of your comfort zone and be a little bit silly.
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In January 2017, I wrote another article that was also titled “How to Learn Calligraphy in Two Months”. The response was interesting: beginners were encouraged, but a small handful of seasoned calligraphers were outraged — I remember one fellow on Facebook got angry and vowed to stop following TPK. “You can’t learn calligraphy in two months, and furthermore, not just anyone can learn it!” he scoffed before his exit.
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