Flourish Formal Style Calligraphy Worksheet

Since I published my first free calligraphy worksheet — the Amy style — I’ve been receiving a lot of questions about calligraphy via email. I love these emails and am always happy to hear from any and all of you because the questions show me what I’m glossing over, or what I should explain better! Hopefully I answer more and more of your questions in each post.

I really appreciate you all being so interactive {and interested in calligraphy in general!} so today, I have created a new free calligraphy worksheet, the Flourish Formal Style. You can find it for download here.

The Flourish Formal Style is near and dear to my heart because it was the first style I learned/developed/taught to myself … first in faux calligraphy, and later in dip pen calligraphy. It’s flourishy and flowy, which makes it elegant; but the fact that it’s not overly slanted makes it modern. I really like using this style on place cards and envelopes for more traditional weddings. In fact, I used a variation of the Flourish Formal Style on the Persian-inspired gold foil invitations that I showed you a couple of weeks ago.

If you want to develop calligraphy styles, it’s important to have a strong understanding of a calligraphy style like this first. It has cut-and-dry upstrokes and downstrokes and plenty of opportunity for you to experiment with flourishing. You can create it with a straight pen holder or an oblique pen holder, whichever you are most comfortable with. I personally like the oblique holder {visit this tutorial if you’re not familiar with how to use one}; but if you don’t like using an oblique holder {or if you’re a leftie!}, you should use a straight holder. Your results won’t be any different, I promise you.

My mom likes to create calligraphy using a style like this; but yesterday she complained to me that her calligraphy looks strained and disjointed, and doesn’t “flow” like she wants it to. I told her — and it’s my opinion that — the trick to mastering this style is experimenting with it using a faux calligraphy technique first. That way, you can familiarize yourself with the curves and flourishes of the letters while using a gel point or ballpoint pen; and then when the time comes to use a dip pen to create them, they’ll look effortless and natural because of your familiarity with the letter formation.

{You can either create faux calligraphy by modeling your letters after those on the free calligraphy worksheet; or you can extensively practice using the “Step One: Mastering Faux Calligraphy” section of the premium calligraphy worksheets.}

When you do start to practice using your dip pen, remember to apply very little pressure on the upstrokes. For the downstrokes, you want to apply pressure so your tines of your nib spread and drag the ink in a thick line. Here’s what your nib should look like on the downstroke:

For beginners, I recommend the Nikko G nib. For intermediate to advanced, I would use the Brause Extra Fine. If you have neither of these nibs, I’d just go ahead and order them from Paper and Ink Arts {if you’re in the US}. Shipping is around $2.00, the nibs are cheap, and you’ll have them within 5 days. {You may be surprised to know I’m not a Paper and Ink Arts salesperson … I just love how cheap and fast their shipping is.}

Because of all the questions I have received, I have decided to offer not only a free version of this worksheet; but also a premium worksheet suite that has seventeen pages of practice and information — for the price of a medium Starbucks semi-fancy drink. You can read more about the premium calligraphy worksheet set here. Please, let me know what you think about the premium worksheet set if you purchase it. Namely, I’d love to know if you would like me to make one for the Kaitlin or Amy styles of calligraphy as well!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to comment or email {[email protected]}! I hope you enjoy this calligraphy worksheet, and I’ve got a great game plan for your Sunday afternoon: go to a nice little coffee shop or café armed with a couple copies of this calligraphy worksheet {or the premium worksheet set, which you will definitely only need one copy of} and your dip pen, and have a wonderful time practicing!