Can You Do Calligraphy on Canvas Tutorial
You are wanting to do calligraphy on canvas.
Maby you saw someone else do calligraphy on a canvas and now you are wondering how in the world did they do that?
Or can you even do calligraphy on a regular canvas?
Well, that is what I am going to be talking about today.
Let me first give you the short answer to your question, before we move onto the rest of the article.
You can do calligraphy on a canvas, but not with a dip pen or brush pen. One of the best ways to do calligraphy on canvas is with a paint pen or with regular acrylic paint.
Now here is a summary of what you are going to be learning in the rest of this article:
- Materials For Lettering On Canvas
- Doing Lettering With Paint Marker
- Doing Calligraphy With Regular Brush
- Final Thoughts
Materials For Lettering On Canvas
Now let us talk about what materials you are going to need for this tutorial today.
Let us first talk about the very basics of what you are going to need.
PENCIL AND ERASER
You are first going to need a pencil and eraser to start drawing out your guidelines/outlines of your hand lettering.
RULER
This will also help you out when drawing out the outlines that you are going to need for doing calligraphy.
You would also use a ruler regularly when doing hand lettering on paper.
PAINT MARKERS
This is something that might be helpful if you are starting out doing calligraphy.
Paint markers are just a great way to write on a canvas, which of course will help you do calligraphy.
But don’t worry this is not necessary.
Some of my favorite options for paint markers are posca paint pens, which is very popular in the art industry right now.
Another great option is using sharpie oil paint markers.
Depending on what type you use some are “more permanent” than others.
Again this is not necessary, I will not be using this today for this tutorial either.
But this material would make it more helpful if you are just beginners learning how to do lettering.
ACRYLIC PAINT
This is now something that you are going to need unless you already have paint markers.
I recommend using any type of craft paint.
One of the best and most affordable is apple barrel paint, which is something found in all craft stores.
But in this tutorial, I am going to be using Arteza acrylic colors.
Any craft paint that can be used on a canvas would do fine.
BRUSHES
I find that one of the best brushes that you can use for calligraphy would be round tipped brushes that are of high-quality.
This is the only time that high-quality art supplies are important.
Now, if you have low-quality brushes (that are flimsy with the bristles falling off) it may actually make it harder for you to be able to do calligraphy.
So getting you a nice pack of brushes is important for doing calligraphy, just keep it in mind.
But there are of course a lot of affordable options that are high quality. High-quality doesn’t exactly mean expensive.
Finally, we have the one and only…
CANVAS
Now the last material that you are going to need is a canvas.
There are of course a whole load of canvases that you can choose from so I am here to help you out.
So there are two different types of canvases.
One I like to call a bouncy canvas. And another I like to call a flat canvas.
Now let me show you what I am talking about.
A bouncy canvas is a canvas that has wrapped cotton around the wooden frame. I like to call it a bouncy canvas because it has a bouncy feel to it since it is not actually leveled.
Let me show you what I mean.
Now a flat canvas is a canvas that is completely flat like a piece of paper but is thicker.
What I recommend for a beginner (who are barely starting out) is a flat canvas, since it is a nice surface to work on.
If we were to have a bouncy canvas it may make it harder to control the utensil that you are using on the canvas, because it is bouncy.
Doing Lettering With A Paint Marker
So how are we going to do lettering/calligraphy with a marker with a bullet nib?
This is where the faux calligraphy technique comes in. Faux calligraphy (also known as fake calligraphy) is a technique of doing calligraphy with almost any writing utensil.
I have actually done a more in-depth tutorial all about this technique witch you can check it out here. This is just going to be a shorter tutorial.
First things first you are going to already need to know the basic strokes, I would expect you to already know this since you may have practice calligraphy before.
If you don know what these are let me insert a quick picture. The calligraphy strokes are used to connect different letters to then create different words.
STEP 1
With your paint marker, you are going to write out the word like you would do regularly with any other calligraphy tool, except without the line variation.
STEP 2
Now we are going to start adding all of the downstrokes by creating a space or line.
It would be easier to identify the downstrokes if you practice the very basics of calligraphy.
But basically any time you move your pen downwards to create a stroke is a downstroke.
STEP 3
Now we can either leave it like this, fill the space in, or create a nice design inside the empty space.
A great way to do this technique is to fill in the space right after you create the second line so that you don have to go back afterward.
This will help you smudge the paint (less) and prevent any cracks in your paint, since that seems to happen a lot with paint markers.
That’s it!!!
Doing Calligraphy With Regular Brush
I have actually created two different tutorials for this topic.
First, you need to learn that you have to hold your brush at a 65-degree angle.
Instead of holding it at a 45-degree angle, it is easier to hold it at a 65-degree angle since a brush is harder to control.
Next, you are going to need again the basic strokes, which I would expect you to already know.
Pictures are up above.
So like a regular calligraphy tool, upstrokes are thin, and down strokes are thick.
Whenever doing upstrokes you are going to put less pressure, the more pressure the thicker the stroke. Leading then for line variation.
Don’t feel bad if you can get this the first time. It may be harder to use a brush than a dip pen/brush pen.
So give yourself time to practice.
If you are having an incredibly hard time think if it is the type of brush you are using.
Final Thoughts
So you have just learned the step by step process of how exactly you can do calligraphy on a canvas and start hanging some beautiful wall art.
As a beginner, you may find this quite hard so I recommend first starting out with a dip pen or brush pen when learning hand lettering.
If you have never learned calligraphy before I recommend sticking to the basics before using a brush.
If you have any more ideas or calligraphy questions type them in the comments!!