Hello folks! Still snowed under a mass of work but hopefully I'll manage.. Anyway, I was doing some calligraphy yesterday, going over and over again the same foundational hand cause it never works out the way I'd like it to. I've got quite a crooked hand I guess because my lines are never straight and letters change their size all the time. So I started thinking of tools I could use and found a couple of really useful ones!
Why not? Everything can be done digitally nowadays, from journalling to farming. Calligraphy is not an exception. There must be a lot more ways to do that but I was particularily interested by an open source graphics editor called Inkscape. I'm sure it's very versatile and a good alternative to Illustrator or CorelDraw (mostly because it's free and is supported both by Windows and Mac) but I think it's greatest feature is its calligraphy tool. You can adjust everything from thinning to angle behaviour and it works in tandem with a graphics tablet to recreate an almost-real calligraphic experience. You can download the program here and I'll definately try it out as soon as I get to my own computer.
Calligraphy learning websites
I haven't tried these yet and there's not much but these might be useful! However, I recommend investing in a good book as these are irreplaceable.
Calligraphy Learn - it has great video tutorials and useful tips, as well as a bunch of interesting links.
Learn Calligraphy (how original!) - video tutorials and alphabets.
Calligraphy Online - a decent set of basic lessons
Maybe Calligraphy blogs could be a bit more useful?
Scribblers blog - this basically revolves around their items and shipping but a couple of good pieces of advice there.
The Calligraphy Pen - now here's a practical blog for you. Tips and tricks, great links and step by step tutorials.
Notes: A Calligraphic Journal - I think this is the most current and updated blog on calligraphy AND it has lots of links to other interesting calligraphy blogs! Great, turns out calligraphy's not dead!
Linugraph - this is THE tool to use if you're as lazy as I am. Angles, nib widths, everything you need to set your writing on the correct line!
The International Exhibition of Calligraphy - check the website here and make sure you go through all the galleries!
And a huge calligraphy-typography group with lots of resources and fun material - TYPOPHILE!
And as a final note - this is beautiful!
And now I'm returning to my last hour of work. Have fun!