Hi everyone, Diane here with Calligraphy by Diane.
I would like to do some live demonstrations on how one can do calligraphy.
If you have the desire to learn, I can definitely teach you.
So let's get started.
Back and I'd like to demonstrate calligraphy on how to get started and first we're going
to begin by what kind of pens I would recommend.
There is the old-fashioned dipping type of pen like this and you can use it to start
with.
They're very, very cheap to buy and affordable to start with.
However, there's nothing more frustrating for me to do a beautiful big swirly stroke
and running out of ink in the middle of it.
So that's why I don't recommend the dipping style of nib and pen.
What I do recommend is the good old-fashioned ink cartridge like this and it's actually
a nib that's flat across like this.
It's called a manuscript and it's not expensive either and I can definitely begin with that.
And I'm going to show you how to insert the ink cartridge.
Now the ink cartridge looks like this and it's flat at the bottom with a bottleneck
up top.
The bottleneck portion of the cartridge is what goes inside and you have to insert a
lot of force until it pops.
See so there was a lot of force there and don't be afraid of applying the force to
insert the cartridge into the nib portion of the pen.
And then you have turn it for good contact and then you have the barrel and you twist
it back on and now you're ready to get started.
I don't recommend putting the top part of the pen on the back part of your pen because
that throws off the balance of writing so it's better to keep your top over here and
now you can start.
Now in order to make sure we have ink flowing I dipped my nib a little bit into the water
and pulling on paper towels.
Now paper towels are very important because there's a lot of tooth to the paper and it
can really draw the ink from the ink cartridge through the nib really well and then this
tells you you got your ink flowing.
If you have a brand new nib this could take some time because you have to literally break
in a new nib.
Now that we have the ink flowing through the nib properly having checked with the paper
towel we're going to rest the nib on the paper at 45 degree angle just like this.
And then at 45 degree angle you draw up on that angle so you have a very thin stroke.
This is the angle you keep the pen nib at all times to create everything and you'll
get all your thick and thin strokes where they belong.
And this is very important to do to begin even to this day after 39 years experience
I always start by doing this because it tells me the nib is fine, the ink is flowing correctly
and it's all set to start.
And once you feel comfortable doing that you can go straight down and at the bottom you
can see 45 degree angle there and the 45 is of course at the top and you have your thin
and thick stroke where it belongs.
And this is just done on cheap bond paper do not invest in some expensive paper at this
stage of the game because you're going to waste a lot of paper to start.
So and don't use any lines on the paper that becomes a crutch later on so I teach all my
students how to do calligraphy beautifully without the crutch or use of guidelines or
lines at all.
So if you want to know more about that please subscribe below and I will show you more.
