I love Illuminated manuscripts, I mean, who doesn’t? One of my more recent fantasies has been to learn calligraphy and maybe even play with that kind of thing. Though I don’t think I have nearly enough free time to make an entire bible or somesuch :v
Well I turned out pretty lucky and recently got a calligraphy starter kit (The Calligrapher’s Studio Kit
to be precise.) from my neighbors and a couple days ago I finally cracked it open. The book that comes with it is… to be honest kind of lame. It doesn’t explain the components of the kit and barely tells you how to get started. The page that talks about supplies and stuff concerns a lot of things that don’t actually come with the kit which sorta pissed me off >3>
But I was able to figure out some things more or less and it looks pretty good, I just need to get some better practice paper since the ink it comes with bleeds through my sketchbook real easily =x= Also the bottle it was in was leaking so I had to sacrifice one of my glass bottles to become an ink well (which, inadvertently, may actually be what it was made as…). So I’m working on my skills with the dip pen it comes with. it has quite a few odd pen nibs, one of which is called an “automatic pen” which is really wide and kind of like a weird-ass paintbrush in it’s effect. It’s certainly an adjustment from normal writing to this calligraphy writing, I have to hold the pen at different angles than I’m used to even with a fountain pen.
But it’s pretty fun! and it seems like I can get the hang of it pretty easily so we’ll see what projects I’ll make out of this in the future and maybe by then I’ll have something decent to take pictures with!
Do you have any experience in calligraphy? Any hints or tips for using a dip pen? Questions? Suggestions?
Leave a comment below!
-ON HOLD-
Crafty Girl 
I enjoy using dip pens – mostly for the ease I can change ink colors, plus it forces me to slow down and pay attention. I have wanted to try calligraphy for a long time, but unfortunately my handwriting is so bad and my had/eye coordination so poor I have a long, long way to go.
I do like them but I preffer my fountain pen for standard writing since I can write more than a few words at a time.
Ah, It varies. I consider myself to have pretty poor handwriting but it feels like just using the fountain pen or writing with the calligraphy nib (at the correct angle of course) pretties it up instantly haha.
My suggestion would be to just give it a shot and start practicing! “The work will teach you how to do it” Believe it or not I got that from a fortune cookie, and it’s been something of my motto ever since
That’s great advice – better than anything I ever got from a cookie. I too love my fountain pens – it’s a bit of an addiction. Sometimes I’ll just write gibberish simply to move the nib across the paper.