A Pointed Pen Calligraphy Tutorial

By: Snow White Bear

Pointed pens have pointed tips. They come in straight and oblique holders.

Some pens can do both. Choose whichever is more comfortable.

First, clean your nib by putting it in your mouth for a few seconds (older calligraphers still do this), or get a potato from your garden and stick all your nibs in it (a minute should be enough, but some do this overnight) or my favorite using up all the unnatural toothpaste the dentist gives you to clean your nibs. If you skip this step, I’ll get a message from you saying, “Snow White Bear, I tried to write, but the ink won’t come out.” For ink, any calligraphy ink will work. Thinner ink is easier to work with; slowly add distilled or filtered water. Walnut ink can be made at home or bought and is easy to work with. Iron gall ink is tremendous but slowly eats at the nib. “Dinky dips” are popular for pouring ink in.

Don’t use printer paper. Any paper that is 32lbs or more (Hp 32lbs is popular) and smooth will work. Some like resume paper even though it has a slight texture. I print calligraphy guidelines I find online on these papers then I’m ready to practice.

Pointed pens are great at Copperplate script. Here are the basic strokes:

Always write using guidelines. Traditionally Copperplate is written at 55 degrees. Practice the basic strokes until you can do them at least 80% consistently. Now it’s time to move on to letters. Letters are made up of basic strokes. The basic strokes usually group the letters they are composed of.

Practice and practice writing letters and practice writing them slowly. You know when you’re going too fast when your pen keeps scratching or skipping on the page. Clean your pen with water and a paper towel every once in a while when writing after letters are mastered, and practice many words with attention to letter connections (I’ve seen this be a whole course) and spacing. Traditionally calligraphers are taught to practice pangrams like “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Writing long phrases can help master spacing and words more quickly. Next, majuscules and capital letters are learned, and unfortunately, they use different basic strokes and spacing than the minuscules or lower cases letters.

There are other scripts one can write with a pointed pen. Spencerian, a script invented in America by Platt Rogers Spencer, is the second most popular. My favorites are Engrosser Script, Italian Hand, and Open-Shaded Script.

Modern calligraphy is based on traditional calligraphy but stylized differently. Although you don’t have to learn traditional calligraphy first, many calligraphers recommend it. What’s fun about modern is that after you practice hard and learn the rules, you make your own style.

The fun thing about calligraphy is that they are many scripts, many pens, and many styles to learn. I only mentioned a few. It’s technical art that is limitless, and you keep improving your script every time you practice.