Karla Lim - Creative Calligraphy Made Easy

CREATIVE CALLIGRAPHY

Made Easy

A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO CRAFTING STYLISH CARDS, EVENT DECOR AND GIFTS

Karla Lim FOUNDER OF WRITTEN WORD CALLIGRAPHY AND DESIGN

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For my husband, Clement; my son, Chase; and my good friend, Brooke, for the unconditional love and support of my dreams.

Calligraphy has allowed me to venture on an incredible artistic journey filled with many discoveries and surprises. One of those delights has been meeting people from around the globe and making good friends along the way. I was first introduced to Karla Lim and her business, Written Word Calligraphy and Design, through a mutual friend. We quickly discovered that in addition to our shared love for all things related to calligraphyinks, papers, tools and supplieswe shared the same philosophy of finding beauty in imperfection. And although we share this philosophy, if you were to view our work side by side, you would notice our styles are actually quite different. I touched on this topic of developing your own style in the book I wrote, The Gift of Calligraphy: A Modern Approach to Hand Lettering with 25 Projects to Give & to Keep. Creating a style that is your own is actually encouraged within the principles of modern calligraphy. You may even notice that elements of your own handwriting will come through each and every time you practice calligraphy!

Karlas graceful and elegant hand shines throughout each project showcased in this book. Her approach is easy to follow and the exquisite styling and ideas are dreamy. Creative Calligraphy Made Easy is a book that I wish Id had access to when I was a beginner twenty years ago. Its been wonderful to watch Karla grow her business into what it is today. She has proved that passion, hard work and dreaming big can lead to tremendous opportunities. Congratulations, KarlaI am deeply humbled and honored to be a part of it.

Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls

Artist, author, calligrapher and designer

Hi, new calligraphy friend! Im so glad that you are here. This book is a culmination of my creative energies, sharing what I love: calligraphy. Calligraphy is an amazing skill to have, and I love it because once you get the hang of it, there are many different ways you can apply ithandmade cards, wedding details, personalized gifts and projects for your home that you can be proud of. Also, theres just something special about calligraphyit is therapeutic and meditative. In fact, I spend a lot of my days writing letters and strokes, with some relaxing music on in the background, and it helps me focus and calm down amid the chaos of my bustling work and life.

In this book, Im going to share my passion and vision with you. Youll learn all about the foundations of calligraphy, from the basic strokes to lowercase and uppercase letters to connecting letters to make words. Then, with your newfound calligraphy skills, youll learn how to apply them by creating curated and personalized projects that are bound to warm your loved ones hearts.

Oh, by the way, my name is Karla. Im the founder and owner of Written Word Calligraphy and Design, a modern calligraphy design studio based in Vancouver, Canada. Written Word offers calligraphy education, wedding stationery design and calligraphy products. Im all about intention and cohesion in my work. After discovering calligraphy as a hobby and as a relaxation method, I have since wanted to share calligraphy with students all over the world so that they can also discover the joy of writing beautifully. Drawing on my years of experience in crafting, as well as my purposeful, creative style, I created the calligraphy projects in this bookprojects youre going to really love. As you go through this book, youre going to see my favorite color palettes, my minimal, modern approach to design and my crafting style. If you want to know more, visit my website at writtenwordcalligraphy.com.

Learning calligraphy is a journey. Dont worry too much if you think that your handwriting is terrible or if you dont like to write in cursive, because calligraphy is approached and written differently. It requires different tools and different ways to hold the penbecause of those differences, calligraphy will require time, practice and adjustments to get better. It isnt always easy, but it is doable. And once you get it right, the opportunities are endless. The longer you practice calligraphy, the more your work will progress and grow. The learning curve is different for every student, but I know you can do this. With the proper tools, technique, practice and direction, you will learn to write calligraphy beautifully.

Are you excited to learn calligraphy and how to apply it in many beautiful and creative ways with me? I cannot wait to see what you will create! Lets get started.

Before we get started learning how to write in modern calligraphy, lets talk about what calligraphy is all about. By definition, calligraphy is the art of producing decorative or artistic handwriting using a pen, brush and related tools. Historically, there are styles that were meant to be written in a certain manner consistently, with established letterforms, such as traditional calligraphy like Copperplate or Spencerian.

People were required to write them in the exact same way, just like how we would use a font. There were preexisting rules to follow, such as writing with specific slants, sizes, shapes and so on. Modern calligraphy uses the exact same tools as traditional pointed-pen calligraphy but you set your own lettering rules, styles, flourishes and more. When you use a pointed pen to write in calligraphy, you will be going back in time, dipping a pen into an inkwell and writing with a flexible, pointed nib. The flexible pointed pen creates thin and thick lines when you write, which leads to the signature look of modern calligraphy. I always think of modern calligraphy as drawing or painting letters and words, rather than simply writing them to be read. Modern calligraphy is truly an artistic expression!

Once you grasp the concepts of modern calligraphy, it will be easier for you to apply them to other kinds of lettering, such as brush lettering and hand lettering. Learning modern calligraphy provides you the foundation you need to understand how the letters should look and how they should connect. Brush lettering uses a brush instead of a pointed pen, so it yields a different end product when you write. We will be creating some projects using a brush in this book, so youll get to try your hand at brush lettering as well. On the other hand, hand lettering uses various tools that mimic the look of modern calligraphy, such as having thick and thin lines, but hand lettering has the flexibility of writing on various surfaces. Because the hand-lettering tools dont typically have the ability to create thick and thin lines, you will have to manually thicken the lines. In this book, we will also be working on other surfaces besides paper, so you will get the chance to try hand lettering as well.