BRUSH CALLIGRAPHY: THE JOY OF PAINTED WORDS

Think of calligraphy as the art of drawing letters and painting at the same time. Advanced art students used different sizes and two types of lettering brushes. Recalling the proper handling of Roman style lettering pens is really important because this is an essential experience for working with lettering brushes. Like Roman pen points, lettering brushes should be held at a 45 degree angle at all times. This is necessary to produce it's characteristic "thick and thin" stroke.

However, there's one exception.

  The right "script" brush in the left illustration, is held differently. This is a often a "one stroke" brush--meaning, the entire letter form is drawn (painted) with just one, continuous brush stroke. The brush is held straight up--as vertical as possible, firmly pressed with the thumb against the 2nd (not the third) knuckle of the index finger. Awkward? Just at first. It takes some practice and is worth it.

  The two right examples above offer stroke practices with each brush. General stroke guides are provided to study the manner and order of brush stroking. Each line uses a different sized brush requiring changes in spacing. The larger the brush, the more room needed for letter definition and space alignment before the next one.

We found lined, computer paper to be a perfect, inexpensive paper for brush calligraphy practices. Lines can be grouped for a variety of sizes. Thinned poster paint was a fine medium to use in a variety of colors.