Modern calligraphy techniques with ink

Hi, I’m Jessie, a UK based illustrator and lettering artist, specialising in nostalgic, botanical illustration and Victorian style lettering. I have been fortunate enough to work with wonderful clients across luxury British food and drink brands. 

Today I’d like to show you some modern Calligraphy techniques using Winsor & Newton Calligraphy Inks  I’m using an A4 gummed Winsor & Newton watercolour pad for my surface.  Using a Winsor & Newton size 12 round brush. and laying down a light water wash.  Now ill drop in dark blue and sepia Winsor & Newton Calligraphy inks and let them settle on the page.  I’m tipping the surface slightly to allow the inks to run into each other.   Before I start the calligraphy lettering, I’m going to practice on a marker pad using a dotted grid, which will help with my layout.  I’m using Winsor & Newton gold calligraphy ink with a dip pen and just practicing some flourishes for a letter ‘P’.  I’m starting with the ‘P’ Stem, then building the Ascender with a curling flourish. The letters ‘urs’ can be written in a single stroke. Then also the ‘uit’ letters.  And finish the word with a flourish on the cross stroke of the ‘t’.  It’s nice to mix upper and lower case in a calligraphy composition, with words like ‘OR’ and ‘OF’  I’m drawing an open ‘O’ and adding a  Serif to the ‘R’ at the centre of the composition.  Now I’m drawing another ‘P’ stem, then building the flourish, ‘er’ ending on a sweeping tale for  the ‘f ’ and then the ‘ect’ again ending with a big sweeping cross stroke on the ‘t’ and onto the ‘ion’ ending with another big sweeping flourish to frame the word and dot the ‘i’ to finish the letter.  I’m going to finish the piece by drawing some stars spaced around the edges of the letters, and then using a dry brush I’ll flick speckles of gold ink around the stars.  I hope you enjoyed this video.