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Tip 2: Properties of the Pointed Pen Nib

 

 

I’m super excited that you’ve joined me on the “5 Tips You Must Know About Pointed Pen Calligraphy Before You Start Writing. Today, we’re going to start with tip number 1: Properties of Pointed Pen Calligraphy Letters. 
 If you’d seen pointed pen calligraphy before, and wanted to start learning it, that’s most likely because you’d fallen in love with how graceful it looks. But, what exactly make these letters and words so beautiful? Let’s take a look.

The 5 properties of pointed pen letters

1. Thick down strokes

2. Thin up strokes

3. The curve of the letters are also thin.

4. The letters have consistent width and there is equal spacing between letters and words

5. There is a consistent slant angle of the script.

The angle of the script is a fairly important property, because when you are writing with your pointed pen, how you hold your pen or position your paper will determine the angle and other properties of all the letters you produce. But, what is the angle of the script?

Angle of the script

The two quotes I showed next are written in two different slant angles. The first one is written on the copperplate 55 degree angle As you can see, all the downstrokes, and all the upstrokes are along the 55 degree slant line.  For modern script, you don’t need to write it at such a slanted 55 degree. You can choose something more upright. For example, I’ve written the second quote on a 75 degree slant angle  Now that you’ve seen these two examples, I’m going to show you two other quotes.

In the next two quotes, you can see that they both have varying slant angles. This first quote’s slant angles are more varied. While in the second one, even though there are some variation in slant angles, most of the letters are more consistent. While the first quote is not wrong, it doesn’t have the consistency that creates a cohesive look. Verses the second quote, the same letters are still relatively the same, so it looks a little bit more uniform.

Maintain the angle of the script

This is an important point because as you’re learning modern script, eventually you’ll want to develop your own style, and if you want to inject some finesse into your work, maintaining the consistency of the slant angle will make a big difference.

Now why am I talking about slant angle for pointed pen calligraphy? If you’re using an iPad or a brush pen, it is way easier to produce various slant angles than with using a pointed flexible nib. In the tip, we will go through the property of a pointed flexible nib so you can understand what I mean.

I hope you find this tip helpful. If you have any questions, please comment below or send me an email. And if you think someone else may find this helpful, please share with them my sign up link, so they can also receive my tips too! Thank you and until next time.

 

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Tip 2: Properties of the Pointed Pen Nib