Pretty Prints & Paper

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve missed you all! I keep thinking of blog posts… kind of detailing them, sometimes creating the images… but fall short of actually publishing them. There have been so many varying things pulling at me and it’s been making me wonder about where I want to take the blog. So, here we are!

A long time ago, before I got my beloved iPad Pro and Pencil, I hand-drew a flourish worksheet based on some of my favorite styles at the time. Today, I finally gave the worksheet an update and wanted to share it with you!

If you’ve been wondering how you do calligraphy flourishes, I hope this helps you out. It’s sized for a regular 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper. Remember that smoother paper like marker paper or premium printer paper will be best for the longevity of your brush markers.

A few tips that I’ve learned in practicing calligraphy flourishing:

• Practice with pencil – it feels much less intimidating
• Keep strokes thin rather than worry about adding pressure and thick lines
• Often, we use just our hands for movement – free up the whole arm and shoulder to move and draw bigger shapes
• Oval shapes are more aesthetically pleasing than circles
• Some of the easiest places to start flourishing are crossbars on T’s and the descending loops on g’s j’s and y’s. Next I like to add flourishes on letters that “drop” below the baseline like t’s, r’s, m’s, and n’s.
• Want more? Check out my calligraphy introduction, connecting letters, or my classes

  

Click here to download – please keep this for personal use!

What other tips do you have for practicing flourishes? Let me know in the comments!