My calligraphy tools

I am passionate for calligraphy, this is my therapy. A way to express myself. I started learning calligraphy from pinterest, and instagram videos as an escape from work and save myself from the burnout. Little I know at that time calligraphy will became my hobby.

I have learned the following calligraphy so far:

a. brush lettering

b. nib calligraphy

c. devnagri calligraphy

People liked my calligraphy and this lead me to do :

a. Conduct a few workshops to teach how to do calligraphy.

b. Design and sell laptop stickers, bookmarks, coasters, posters, invitations and desk calendars.

c. and made a few reels

Tools

A lot of folks think that one needs to spent a lot of money to start with calligraphy. As the pens, and paper are too costly. However, one can do calligraphy even with pen and pencil. Infact, do check Achut's work. I attended his workshop during covid. He showed that one can make art and calligraphy with any tools (not special tools). I highly recommend you to check his work.

Below is list of all my tools:

Pens

I use different pens for different calligraphy style.

1. Ecoline brushes

These are the pens I started calligraphy with and my goto pens. I love these pens as they have:

a. thick grip

b. tip is not very thin nor thick

c. ink gives very nice gradient

2. Pental pens

These are my next favourtie. I use these pens when I want to create small artwork

3. Nibs pens

These are nibs. There are different nibs and every nibs has different calligrpahy styles. I only know 2 types of nib calligraphy.

4. Micron pens

These are the pens I use for outlining. If you will see my artworks, I do a lot of black outline and these are my goto pens for the outline.

5. Watercolor brushes

This is the style I don't use much but it is also a nice way to do calligraphy.

Papers

When starting with calligraphy, it is crucial to understand that a good paper is necessary. A bad paper will leads to bloating or feathering of the ink. With nibs there is risk of paper get torn. So, a good paper is crucial.

My tip: always do ink test with paper. 

Normally all papers are 60gsm. Higher the gsm, higher the thickness. So, go for anything 60-100GSM. With GSM, there is also : cold press or hot press, in simple words : hand made or machine made. It depends upon your choice which one you prefer. I like to play around with both.

So, you can use the normal print paper for calligraphy with most of the pens. For nibs you need inks. We will talk about this too.

Colors

If you are using brushes, and nibs then you need colors and inks:

a. Watercolor: My favourites are Camlin

b. Gouche colors

c. Oil colors

d. Inks: There are many brands and you can use any but again do the paper testing. For beginners I would highly recommned Jake Parker's ink

Happy Calligraphy!!