Is Parchment Paper Good For Calligraphy?

You want to learn the beautiful art of hand lettering and modern calligraphy but the only thing you have right now is parchment paper.

Maby you have seen others use parchment paper for there calligraphy.

So now you are wondering can you really do calligraphy on good old parchment paper?

Well, I am about to answer your question.

You can totally use parchment paper for doing any type of calligraphy and lettering. This is a great way to practice with something that usually is not used for calligraphy.

So now I am just going to be giving you a quick little summary of what you guys are going to be learning about today:

• Pros of Parchment Paper
• Cons of Parchment Paper
• Final Thoughts

Pros of Parchment Paper

A GREAT WAY TO PRACTICE TO NOT WASTE PAPER

It is a great way to just practice without having to waist your other sheets of paper that you may use for final details and projects.

So instead of using your nice Bristol board, and other nice papers, you can use parchment paper instead.

HELPS YOU STAY CONSISTENT WITHOUT WAISTING PRACTICE SHEETS 

So you can grab your practice sheets and just bring your parchment paper over it without having to waist the actual practice sheets.

This can also be useful when you just write on a separate sheet of paper a letter or word.

Then you can put the parchment paper over it and be able to practice the same letter over and over again.

Something awesome is you can write a whole entire sheet of the alphabet in your calligraphy.

After that just practice everything over parchment paper, then you won’t waste your sheet of paper.

HELPS WITH LETTERING LAYOUT

Something great about using parchment paper is that it helps you layout your letters when you are starting out.

So for example you can write out your letters simply on a sheet of paper.

Then take your parchment paper then move the letters around until you have them in the perfect spot.

So this will be able to help you learn where to place your letters when you are starting out.

YOU CAN SAVE YOUR DESIGNS

What I mean by this is that you can save the piece of parchment paper that has your lettering on it.

For example, when creating your lettering design on the parchment paper you can easily transfer it onto a regular sheet of paper by putting it over a window or lightbox.

But if you find to lose that piece of paper or want to use the exact same type of design you can easily grab the parchment paper and recopy it.

This I find helpful if you don quite want to be redrawing your letters over and over again for a project that you have.

Or maybe you want to keep all of your letters consistent and can just trace over them with the parchment paper.

Cons of Using Parchment Paper for Your Calligraphy

Now let us move onto the cons of using your parchment paper for hand lettering and calligraphy.

First things first

PARCHMENT PAPER IS EXPENSIVE

You might think about it but for some people, this is way too big for there budget.

Unless you have access to parchment paper at home this isn’t something that you would go for when practicing calligraphy.

THERE ARE CHEAPER ALTERNATIVES

There are actually cheaper alternatives than using parchment paper that you would and a regular grocery store.

I am talking about using tracing paper.

I have found this extremely inexpensive and can be found at many other art stores.

You can do everything that you can do with parchment paper and it is at a more affordable price.

And there is a Strathmore Tracing Paper.

So I recommend to go check that out if you are looking for a more affordable option.

COMES ROLLED UP

One of my problems with parchment ( probably just me) is that the paper is never completely flat since it comes rolled up.

And this may make it hard to do your hand lettering.

Conveniently tracing paper actually comes in a marker pad format or like a regular notebook.

Witch first makes it very easy to store all of your different pages and they are all flat sheets of paper that are easy to work on.

But honestly, if you don’t mind that, this is completely fine.

TAKE A LONGER TIME FOR THE INK TO DRY

One of the things that I notice when using this for my brush pens ink actually took longer to dry than usual.

This can be especially a problem for people who are left-handed brush lettering artists.

Always smudging ink everywhere is not something to look forward to.

This is actually not something that I experience with tracing paper so all should be fine over there.

This is just something that you want to keep in mind while using parchment paper for your lettering practice. 

TOO THIN TO USE FOR FINAL PROJECTS

One of the big things is of course you can’t use this paper for commissions or other final projects.

Which means you can only use it for practicing your calligraphy.

You wouldn’t want to give one of your customers a piece of flimsy parchment paper.

GRAPH PAPER KIND IS WAY MORE EXPENSIVE

A lot of calligraphers like using graph paper so that they won have to draw out their guidelines and make sure all of there letters are consistent.

The downfall is that find parchment paper that has graph lines is actually quite hard to find in regular stores.

Another thing is when I did find a parchment paper with a graph it was more expensive.

So I think you can sort of see now my thoughts on parchment paper.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, as you can see here there are more Cons and Pros.

But by all means, this should not spot you from trying it for yourself. 

I think if parchment paper is your only option for practicing calligraphy with it is fine neat paper.

But if you are just looking for something with a similar factor go with tracing paper which is of course more affordable.

If you are having any more modern calligraphy questions feel free to comment.