Take me by the hand(writing)

June 27, 2017 3:19 PM

Teenage daughter recently took a big interest in calligraphy. How should I encourage this? Send me resources--quick!
posted by TigerMoth to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (18 answers total)

Give her any adequate pen and a flat place? She needs time to practice more than stuff. There are more examples online than Lloyd Reynolds dreamt of.
posted by clew at 3:33 PM on June 27, 2017

Response by poster: I have no idea what an "adequate pen" might be. (Nor do I even know who Lloyd Reynolds is!) Flat space and time? I can handle that! :)
posted by TigerMoth at 3:45 PM on June 27, 2017

I went through this in 4th grade! A book with different styles (though Black Letter is always fun to learn, and some kind of Script) is good, eventually picking up some different pens, tip styles, etc. Nothing too expensive or fragile, but after the first pen and book she might want some options to choose from. As a teenager she might have more preconceived notions you can work off of, so follow her lead if she has one.
posted by rhizome at 3:46 PM on June 27, 2017

In college I had a side job at a very good art materials shop. The business owner was/is a professional calligrapher (for weddings, diplomas, etc.) and routinely held workshops in copperplate/spencerian scripts, two foundational hands. If you have any folks like this in your area, sign her up for a workshop! It's amazing how much one can learn in 2-3 hours with an experienced letter artist.

I'd also encourage you to check out the amazing letter arts folks on Instagram, like tashadeguzman and masgrimes. These folks have wide-reaching networks and sometimes host traveling workshops, in addition to the excellent resource that video via social media offers.

You can probably track down copies of Letter Arts Review at your library or specialty art/book shops.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 3:46 PM on June 27, 2017

/r/Calligraphy on reddit. Scroll down the sidebar for the Resources section. The sub itself is typical hobby stuff: pictures of people's works, discussions about materials and techniques, requests for "CC," constructive criticism.

Reddit also has a good search function, and you can also sort posts by "Top" (most upvoted) and such. Just for fun, I checked out the post that scored Most Controversial, and it's a pretty beautifuls multicolored sample of calligraphy.
posted by Sunburnt at 3:49 PM on June 27, 2017

Brit.co offers a number of different classes on calligraphy and other styles of hand lettering (and offer a few classes on entrepreneurship as well!). I've taken a few of them and have found them be a good start.
posted by honeybee413 at 3:50 PM on June 27, 2017

Honestly, whether it's a grownup or a younger person, I would totally recommend a brief intro class in real life. It can be super frustrating to not understand why your ink is doing the thing it's doing, why your pen isn't cooperating, or why your piece is all smudgey and you can't get the lines right.

There were plenty of younger folks at the community college calligraphy class I took, and on the very first day, the instructor showed us tips and techniques and shared materials that made it way easier to go home and practice for hours on end.
posted by redsparkler at 3:51 PM on June 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

Like clew implied, once you have the basic introduction and materials, it's a lot easier to go home, practice for hours, and create on your own. You don't want to spend too much time teaching your hand the "wrong" methods when a single class would set up a solid foundation for those skills.
posted by redsparkler at 3:55 PM on June 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

A decent pen makes a HUGE difference.
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:01 PM on June 27, 2017

A decent pen does make a difference, but I had enough fun with a felt-tip early on to be able to figure out what was what.
posted by rhizome at 4:08 PM on June 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is the calligraphy bible.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 4:14 PM on June 27, 2017

There are a lot of calligraphy and handwriting focused posts and tutorials geared towards the (day)planner fans on Instagram.

Boho Berry comes to mind. She shares pen recommendations, promotes calligraphy and handwriting, and you can see her in action on Insta stories.

Planner stuff is a great paper craft and could be an every day way for your daughter to exercise her creativity and new found interest. Bullet journals may also appeal.
posted by Juniper Toast at 6:01 PM on June 27, 2017

Ask teenage daughter to research and propose a beginner's pen in a budget you set, TigerMoth! (When I was a kid, this would often come as a deal that if I got good I would be, say, writing the tags for the presents next winter. I liked this. YMMV.) $10 will get you a perfectly good beginner's pen. Don't put shopping above practice. Just get enough to go on with.

I would have picked something else as the calligrapher's bible, e.g. this or this, but that just shows that if this 'takes' you will have easy-to-wrap presents for years. Very handy.
posted by clew at 6:11 PM on June 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

I would somewhat caution you against being so quick to research and figure out the best possible set for her. She's a teenager - let her do the research herself and have it be more self motivated. For some reason, at that age I was much more likely to do things if I felt my parents were not pushing me into it.
posted by peacheater at 7:43 PM on June 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Skill Share has hand lettering and calligraphy classes. Pinterest has dozens of hugely popular calligraphy boards that link to tutorials and practice sheets. No link because they pretty much closed off the community to non-members. Signing up and searching will work just fine.
posted by xyzzy at 9:04 PM on June 27, 2017

I use a $4 calligraphy marker for practice. I also have a good dip pen, but the marker is more convenient for carrying around.
posted by jb at 9:05 PM on June 27, 2017

Pen or nib recommendations will differ depending on the type of calligraphy your daughter is most interested in (Italic nibs for more traditional, blockier calligraphy versus pointed/flex nibs for the fun, fancy script-style). The JetPens blog has a good Calligraphy Pen 101 blog post for checking out some good options for starting out, and the Goulet Pen Co. Blog has a lot of great information as well, though they tend to specialize in higher end fountain pens. Both of these blogs have AWESOME content for beginners and experts, so they might be good resources for her to check out.

Practice is definitely the key to getting good, more than materials or anything else, so I probably wouldn't recommend spending a whole lot of money on anything out of the gate, but $50 would probably get you a nice Speedball intro pen + nib set, a cheapish pad of watercolor paper (does well with inks), a bottle of ink, and a good calligraphy primer at the art store. If she's more interested in handlettering and things like that, Creative Lettering and Beyond is a very highly rated book for that.

I totally agree re: both taking a calligraphy class at a local CC or art space or something and following handletterers/calligraphers on Instagram or YouTube. Especially when first starting out, having an in person teacher to help give you the basics and suggest real time corrections to your work is invaluable feedback, and nothing gets you more inspired to work on calligraphy than watching someone else be awesome at it.

How fun! Best of luck to her!
posted by helloimjennsco at 8:49 AM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

Lettering in general is en vogue right now; I'm sure she has instagram, ask if she follows some of the big typography players. Start with Hom Sweet Hom!
posted by le_salvo at 3:20 PM on June 28, 2017