The basics of calligraphy – Part 3: “How handwritten letters make everything more beautiful.”
Application examples
As soon as you have had a bit of practice with calligraphy, there are a huge amount of possibilities for you to create all kinds of things with it. Once you have mastered one style, you can also start playing around with other styles and decorative elements.
I personally love creating birthday cards myself and writing the person’s name or quotes on them. Decorating gifts with little tags is also a wonderful option.
Cards
I always have great fun designing cards. Here are a few examples of some I have created.
Flat lay photo
I am a great fan of the still very popular flat lay photography. All you need here is an interesting background, for example a marble adhesive film or painted MDF board. Then you can place a bit of fabric in the background, drape the paper with the lettering work and the materials used and take the photo from above. No special cameras are needed for flat lay photos. Using the free Adobe Lightroom app, you can take photos in the integrated camera in RAW format and then simply edit them afterwards. Thanks to the RAW format, things like colour temperature and contrast can be adjusted to suit afterwards.
Digital calligraphy using the iPad and Apple pencil
The iPad 2018 with Apple pencil support has made iPad lettering accessible to a wider audience. Digital calligraphy has been extremely popular since the iPad Pro was issued. The Procreate app is the most common app and allows you to create wonderful lettering digitally. The digital nature allows you to be even more creative with brushes. I have more than 200 brushes on my website, most of which are free and make lettering in Procreate easier.
Digital lettering has its own learning curve and can be a bit difficult to start with, however the possibilities are huge and I urge everyone who has an iPad or iPad Pro to experiment with the Apple pencil and Procreate.
I have explained the technique for creating effects behind the letters or other image elements in two tutorials on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfvzWXnNmgw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPxw4Z4rHOE
Photo prints
I love photography almost as much as calligraphy. And even though I’m a huge Instagram fan, I’m an even bigger fan of having my feed’s pictures as real printed photos in my home.
However, it’s not just photos that can be printed as photo prints but quotes also make great pictures.
I am a huge fan of the square format with 11 cm sides.
Wonderful photo collages or paper chains can be created with the pictures. Photo walls also look fantastic.
And anyone who likes giving the gift of memories and pictures can follow my instructions for a photo envelope and embellishing this with brush lettering.
And anyone who likes giving the gift of memories and pictures can follow my instructions for a photo envelope and embellishing this with brush lettering.
Closing words
Calligraphy is several centuries old and even though sometimes it may seem as if it’s time to send it into retirement, it manages to creep its way back into our hearts time and time again. Calligraphy is far from dead, just like us all it has adapted to the times. It is now more modern, faster paced, digital, an absolute Instagram star and still a wonderful hobby with which you can conjure up a smile on your loved ones’ faces.
Myriam from halfapx
Myriam calls herself a logophile and cannot stop experimenting with words. It doesn’t matter what form the words take. She loves writing prose for fictional stories, personal blogs and Instagram captions that go way beyond any maximum length. Professionally she is an author of words that dress the Internet, a front end developer, website seamstress, whatever you want to call it. And nearly three years ago she became addicted to beautiful letters in the form of calligraphy. Since then she has been sharing her love of words online with a touch of her enthusiasm for photography and an extra large portion of obsession with coffee in her Blog, on Instagram and on YouTube. She has also dedicated 1,513 words to the topic of calligraphy in her own blog (in English) for anyone who would like to know even more!