I am going to calligraph some wedding invitations. I have never done this before. Is it generally done with a fountain pen or with the chisel tip pens. What tip size is best. I will admit right now that if I can’t do it decently, I’ll just hire someone, but would prefer to do it my self.
The size of the chiseled nib depends on the size and style of lettering you’re going to do. There are different proportions of thick to thin lines for different kinds of lettering. In some cases, the lowercase letters may be four pen widths high. In other cases it might be more.
Different styles also require the nib to be held at different angles. The angle the nib is held determines where the thicks and thins fall on the curves and how bold the letters appear. For some it might be held at a 45-degree angle, while others are 30 or 60.
You can test out the way your letters look to determine a pen width and angle that pleases you. The most important thing is to keep that pen angle consistent at all times.
Place the nib on the paper at, say, 45 degrees, and draw a circle, while keeping the nib at that angle. Notice that the thick parts of your O are at around 2 o’clock and 8 o’clock and the thin parts are at 4 o’clock and 10 o’clock. That should remain the same when you’re writing an O or a C or a Q, etc.
It takes considerable practice.
I don’t want to discourage you, but for wedding invites, you might want to go with a pro. Or at least somebody who has done it before.
I’ll second that one - Calligraphy is not easy for many folks - including me. I practiced for years, but I still think my calligraphy looks bad. (The practice helped my day-to day writing look better, though!)
Why do people think they can be competent at something, just because they’ve bought the tools? My cousin is a professional calligrapher. She does beautiful work because she studied for years before going pro.
A wedding invitation is something that has to look really good. Save yourself the time and effort, and hire a pro.
I’ve done a lot of professional calligraphy; in the eighties I was a pen and ink artist and kinda specialized in fancy typefaces. But it was only after years of doodling with letterforms and obsessing of typefaces and drawing them compulsively that my “hand” became smoothe enough, with enough muscle memory, to do professional level calligraphy.
So dauerbach, if you want it look smoothe and professional, set yourself a few hundred hours, at minimum, if you’re already a talented draughtsperson. If it’s OK with you that it look “handmade,” then go for it.
Otherwise, keep in mind that professional-level calligraphy is analagous to drawing hundreds, if not thousands, of individual tiny drawings, in ink, and all lined up straight. The greatest level of skill lies in making it look effortless, but it’s really not anywhere NEAR as easy as it looks
Good luck.
<Warning: lots of verbiage ahead>
Been doing calligraphy as a hobby since grade school, and I would still hesitate to do wedding invitations … unless a really good friend insists and desperately needs to save money. Even then, I would ask him/her to reconsider and pay a professional $1 - $5 per invitation (ballpark numbers here).
Wedding invitations (and weddings overall) are scary things – imagine spending hours (if not days) making a couple of hundred invitations – only to have the bride or mother (from either side, it doesn’t matter) criticize them and force you to do them over for no charge.
Having said that, to answer your original question:
Fountain pens vs. chisel-tip pens (I’m assuming you mean chisel-tip marker)
Using a Fountain Pen:
- looks more professional because of the way the ink looks
- yields richer colors (even black ink on white paper looks very good)
- is more economical in the long run because you’re only buying refill cartridges (or ink wells)
- may result in more ink smudges
- may be trickier if you’re doing hairlines (writing with a corner of the nib tip for ultra-thin lines)
- requires more maintenance (cleaning the pen, changing cartridges, getting ink flow to start, etc.)
Using a Chisel-Tip marker:
- yields fewer smudges
- may be easier because there’s less resistance against the paper with a marker
- yields a more consistent line (and is easier to do hairlines when writing with a corner of the marker tip)
- provides ink lines that are not as rich (although most people aren’t aware of the difference between marker and ink unless you place two samples side-by-side)
- is more expensive in the long run because markers don’t last long and dry up quickly
- is frustrating if stores in your area don’t sell any you need … I’ve walked into art stores where good markers are hard to find or are sold in variety packs so you can’t single out the one you want.
Regarding what size nib to get:
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Letterform sizes are measured proportionately by “nib widths.” See this page for an example of you don’t know what I’m talking about:
http://www.vaxxine.com/mikwit/lessons/lesson2.htm#letterheights -
One way to choose what size nib to use is to get all three sizes (generally speaking, broad, medium, and fine), make three samples, and let the person paying you decide.
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The thicker the nib, the more contrast you have between thick and thin lines. Probably that’s why beginners are encouraged to use larger size nibs; it’s easier to see if the writer is keeping a consistent pen angle.
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There’s no One True way: I’ve seen professional calligraphers use various size nibs on the same amount of white space available, and all the samples look good.
Caveats to the above:
These are the ramblings of a hobbyist and not a professional.
From my personal experience, the general public is more forgiving of what constitutes good calligraphy – to most people, something written in freehand Gothic/Blackletter with a $1 marker is already remarkable.
To elaborate on the above point: people’s perception of calligraphy can be a paradox – sometimes, the very things that calligraphers want to avoid – uneven lettering, uneven ink flow, inconsistent letterforms – are the very things that people recognize as “letters done by hand” and will therefore expect from ‘good’ calligraphy.
Example: I once wrote a Christmas card to my mom’s co-worker. My mom proudly presented the card to her co-worker and said, “Look, my son did this for you.” The co-worker replied, “You mean he used a laser printer?” :smack:
It’s gotten to the point where I leave my pencil guidelines unerased and intentionally over-flourish a few letters so people won’t think I used Microsoft Word and a fancy font. (And trust me, I’m not that good. People just assume everything’s done by computers these days.)
So, dauerbach, I suggest you do a few samples and present them to whoever is going to judge them (or more importantly, pay you), whether it be the bride/groom/mother-in-law/wedding planner/other. Could save you a lot of grief in the long run.
Sorry to rain on your parade, dauerbach, but ditto to the other posters who said that it’s not as easy as it looks. However as a rule of thumb, I’ve found that the broader the nib (and larger the letters), the easier it is to create something that’s halfway presentable. Creating the flowing copperplate script with the tiny nibs has got to be the hardest. I guess you could go with blackletter, which is much easier, but I’m guessing you won’t find this quite appropriate for wedding invitations :).
Buy a couple of good calligraphy books and a set of pens. Practice for a day, and then write out one of the invitations. Note how long it takes you, how many mistakes you make, and whether you really like the final result. Then decide whether you really want to take this on. I’ve done some hobby calligraphy over the years, and I think I can produce some reasonably good-looking lettering, but I’d never consider writing wedding invitations. You want a pro for that.
As a side note, my daughter asked me to address her wedding invitations using calligraphy. I recommended against it, as the sorting machines might have trouble reading the envelopes. I ended up using a calligraphy pen with a narrow nib to hand-letter the invitations, putting flourishes only on the names. It took a long time, and I thought they looked a step up from mediocre, but she was happy.