Watercolor Calligraphy Tutorial
This post may contain affiliate links. Your cost is the same, but it helps support the site and keep our freebies FREE! See our full disclosures here. Thanks for your support!
Watercolor Calligraphy Tutorial
Hello hello! It’s Zakkiya of Inkstruck Studio and I’m back with another tutorial today. I’m mixing two of my favorite things to do, watercolor and calligraphy to show you something I love doing. So get your watercolors and dip pen out to learn from today’s fun watercolor calligraphy tutorial. Enjoy!
Calligraphy is a medium I took up as a challenge in 2015. I had so much fun doing letterforms and drills but I also realised that this was something that I couldn’t accomplish in just a year. It’s a lifelong process of learning and practicing. And I’ve been doing just that. Instead of taking up a new challenge, I decided I would continue learning lettering. And it’s been great because I’ve had such amazing improvement.
If you’ve seen my previous posts, you’ll see how much I love watercolors. It’s what most of my blog is about and that’s my biggest passion. If you’ve not invested in a calligraphy pen yet, my faux watercolor tutorial is the best way to get a similar effect. This watercolor calligraphy tutorial features three simple techniques.
Supplies for the Watercolor calligraphy tutorial:
- Dip pen holder– I love my beautiful handcrafted oblique holder by Rodger Mayeda of Rodger’s Pen Box. Rodger only opens shop at the beginning of every month and his pens sell out quickly. You can also buy wonderful oblique holders from Paper and Ink arts. As an alternative, you can purchase straight holders as well. My detailed calligraphy post for beginners covers everything about it.
- Nibs– I used the Brause EF66 which is amazing. Nikko G is a good beginner nib and has medium flex unlike the Brause.
- Watercolors
- Paintbrush
- Watercolor paper
As the name suggests, dip pens are generally dipped in ink at regular intervals to write. In this case, watercolor needs to applied to the nib with a brush so that it can flow through the tines. Make sure the nib is coated well.
Using a single color
In this case, I’ve written my word in a single color similar to how it’s done usually. As a general rule in calligraphy, the upstrokes need to be thin and downstrokes thick.
Blending with watercolor
I love doing this in watercolors, so it’s no surprise that I had to include blending in my watercolor calligraphy tutorial. I have a detailed post on blending with watercolors if you fancy a look. Here, I begin with red and write a few letters. Then I brush on some purple on the nib without removing red. When written on paper, it creates another hue. I brush on some blue and that creates a shade of purple.
You can use so many colors to create beautiful lettering. I love doing this although it takes a bit longer that usual.
See how blending the colors makes it look so gorgeous and interesting?
Watering the paint down
In this case, I continued the full course of the word by watering down the color. I brushed on purple and wrote a few letters. After that I rinsed out my brush and added only water to the nib. This watered down the paint creating a faded effect to the word as seen below.
Compare the word “happy” written with paint only and the word “serenade”written in this technique to see the difference.
I hope you enjoyed the fun techniques in today’s watercolor calligraphy tutorial. Love calligraphy and lettering like I do,then check out these informative posts below
Thanks for stopping by. If you have any questions, ask me away in the comment section below. Have a lovely day!
Zakkiya @ Inkstruck Studio
The post Watercolor Calligraphy Tutorial appeared first on Dawn Nicole Designs™.