Almost every day, we come across short videos and reels highlighting people engaging in writing beautiful, attractive letters with the help of tools such as ink pens and brushes. These glowing and glittering letters mesmerize us.
Before we get into the introduction of brush pen calligraphy, let us first try to understand what calligraphy is.
1. What Is Calligraphy
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Calligraphy is the art of writing beautiful letters. It can be associated with aesthetic writing and is considered a major art form in the Middle East and East Asia. It is a long-running tradition that bears equal importance to painting and sculpturing. It is a form of art that anyone can try and become an expert. Calligraphy distinguishes regular handwriting and decorative handwriting.
Calligraphy manipulates symbols and letters in such a way that it looks visually appealing and produces beautiful handwriting. Letters are written more skillfully and creatively. Through Calligraphy, words and letters become more expressive, which makes it a form of visual art. When the viewer reads the words written in such a manner, it evokes an artistic reaction.

Calligraphy is divided according to the cultures and regions across the world. For example; Western Calligraphy, Chinese Calligraphy, Japanese Calligraphy, Indian Calligraphy, and Arabic Calligraphy. Currently, Western calligraphy is used widely and frequently. Western Calligraphy contains two major groups; namely Traditional and Modern Calligraphy.

1.1 Traditional Calligraphy
Traditional Calligraphy includes the styles that were developed way back in 600 BC. Some examples of Traditional calligraphies are the Italic script, Roman capitals, black letters styles, uncials, copperplate calligraphy, and insular minuscule. One can explore these styles on Instagram or other social media platforms. Do not confuse calligraphy styles with fonts. They are strictly referred to as scripts. Fonts are various types of letters generated on a computer.
You must have come across them while writing or reading documents on your PC or Laptops. Traditional Calligraphies are characterized by specific strokes that are individual and extremely structured. In this way, letters look uniform. To accomplish this accuracy particular tools are used which have certain heights and thicknesses.
1.2 Modern Calligraphy
The simple way to understand modern calligraphy is that it is not bound by the strict rules generated by traditional calligraphy. Modern Calligraphy can provide more freedom in terms of creativity. But, while doing that one should not get carried away and write or design anything and call it calligraphy. Some rules should be followed to maintain uniformity.
As said earlier unlike Traditional Calligraphy, Modern Calligraphy is flexible in case of rules and regulations. Therefore a variety of tools can be utilized such as classic dip pens, broad nib pens, pencils, brush pens, and markers. You are a beginner, hence it is advised that you should use pencils and brush pens for a while and then move to markers and classic dip pens. It will be much easier for you to draw the letters with their help.
2. What Is Brush Pen Lettering
Calligraphy can be written with the help of pens and brushes. So brush pen lettering is nothing but writing with different kinds of brushes. Now, when we write with brushes it has to be made sure that the tip is smooth, flexible, and sharp. This will allow us to write easily without any errors. We can also use regular painting brushes to do brush lettering.

Brush pen lettering mainly contains two types, such as hand lettering and calligraphy. The main difference between both is that in hand lettering, we tend to draw the letters. In the case of Calligraphy, we write the letters on paper.
2.1 Hand Lettering And Calligraphy
Although both of them are visual art forms their difference lies within their methods of writing the letters. Hand lettering is more focused on illustrating and drawing the letters in a particular manner. Calligraphy concentrates on writing letters creatively and beautifully.
The results of both forms may seem similar. But the difference can be spotted in the result. Hand lettering lets the designer draw every letterform. They are sketched mostly with pencils to get better shape and then the outlines are marked with markers to give an aesthetic effect.
Unlike calligraphy, it is not necessary to use specific tools to draw letters. You can use any writing tool that is easily available and accessible to you. You can use different colours and merge the letters with graphics if you want. The size of the letters can also be modified. The rules of hand lettering are somehow the same as those used for typography and calligraphy.
2.2 Typography
We get the basic idea of this visual art form by only reading this word. In this form, letters are arranged properly and linearly, which makes them visually appealing. This is achieved through employing strategies such as selecting certain sizes, letter spacing, and line spacing. You may have come across this lettering in newspapers, pamphlets, and articles written on various websites.

The history of typography goes way back to when Johannes Gutenberg first invented the mechanical printing press in the year 1439. With the advancement of technology, today, typographers are using computer-made fonts. It is important to understand the process through which various fonts are digitized. Interestingly, first, the letters are sketched on the paper and then polished and digitized to achieve perfection. There is another term that you may be interested in understanding, which is faux calligraphy.
2.3 What Is Faux Calligraphy

Faux means fake. However, it is tricky. On the one hand, you are technically trying to write calligraphy. On the other side, you are writing the letters just to imitate the style. Therefore, this type of writing is called faux calligraphy. There are many tutorials and guides on social media. We looked at the basic differences between Hand lettering and calligraphy. There is another art form that combines them both. It is called Sign painting.
2.4 Sign Painting
It is also one of the visual art forms which combines hand lettering and calligraphy. Sign painting uses unique and specific techniques and tools. Due to its unique writing techniques, it gained popularity, especially in the last century. It was visually very attractive. Therefore, these letters were printed for advertisements, signboards, and billboards on buildings.
For the same reason, this form of writing was known as sign painting. With the development of technology, these letters could be designed and digitized. Thus, sign painting faced an immense fall in interest. On the other hand, it got rescued by social media platforms. People started realizing this art form and again started practising. It gave rise to one more visual art form.
2.5 Chalk Painting

You may have seen beautiful and creative letters written on a blackboard ever since your childhood on blackboards, cafes, and restaurants. They not only look attractive but also catch attention quickly as compared to digital signboards. Chalk lettering is nothing but hand lettering done with the help of chalk.
3. Brush Pen Calligraphy
At the beginning of this article, we introduced you to various concepts like calligraphy, brush pen lettering, and the difference between hand lettering and calligraphy. Brush pen calligraphy is simply writing calligraphy with the help of brush pens. Now, what is the difference between brush pen lettering and brush pen calligraphy? Both of them may sound similar, but the difference lies in their techniques.

Brush pen calligraphy employs basic brush strokes. It is necessary to make clear that brush pen lettering is the common roof under which hand lettering and calligraphy come together.
4. Navigating Brush Pen Calligraphy
To get started you have to stalk the required tools. A brush pen is the basic tool of brush pen calligraphy. We have heard about a paintbrush and its different kinds. But brush pens are a new instrument. A brush pen is simply a brush combined with a marker. It is a marker with a tip that is as flexible as a brush. The tip’s size and flexibility vary according to the calligraphy.
The flexible tip is capable of producing thick and thin strokes. The thickness of the brush pen changes according to the pressure that we apply on the paper. When we say paper, do not take any paper that has been sitting around for a long time.
Some brush pen tips are very fragile. It may affect the strokes if the paper is rough or very old and sometimes even breaks the tip. Choose a paper that is smooth and not very old. It is beneficial to use high-quality printing paper.
5. Final Note
If you are done with the above basic strokes, move your focus to transitions. Start drawing curves going from upstroke to downstroke and then again to upstroke. This will be great practice for you. But these are all basic shapes.
You need to practice harder until you draw other shapes such as the oval, entrance stroke, under turn, overturn, ascending, and descending loop with perfect thickness. You can download free calligraphy practice worksheets from the internet. So don’t let anything stop you. With consistency, you may be the person who people look up to for being able to write beautiful art forms like calligraphy!
Last Updated on by parinaparmar