Is Watercolor Paper Good for Calligraphy?
You are starting brush pen lettering or any type of lettering for that matter and you are wondering is watercolor paper good for calligraphy?
Your in luck because today that is what we are going to be talking about. Of course if you’re in a rush I am going to be giving you the short and easy answer so you will be on your way.
Watercolor paper is not good for calligraphy. The number one reason why watercolor paper is not good for calligraphy is because it is not a smooth surface.
After reading that you might be wondering then what paper can I use?
Here is just a short summary of what I am going to be teaching you today:
- Why Is Watercolor Paper Not Good For Calligraphy
- Type of Paper that Is good for Lettering
- Doing Calligraphy On Watercolor Paper Ideas
Why Is Watercolor Paper Not Good For Calligraphy?
So why is watercolor paper not good for calligraphy?
Well, there are two main reasons that I am going to be talking about today.
- Fibrous (hard to illustrate on)
- Rough ( ruin brush pens)
FIBROUS
The very first thing that you have to take into consideration is that it might be quite hard for you to actually illustrate your lettering art onto the paper.
Especially if you are a beginner this is going to be really hard to do calligraphy or letter onto the actual paper.
Which is I recommend less fibrous paper and something smoother than cardstock?
Yes smoother than cardstock. Even smoother than printer paper in my opinion when starting out calligraphy.
This is very important when you are doing brush lettering calligraphy witch I am going to start explaining
Now…
ROUGH
Well, this is very similar for the paper to have a lot of fibers it is something that you should be considering if you are going into brush lettering.
When starting out brush lettering the paper that you should always be using is smooth and bleed proof.
Yes, watercolor paper is bleed proof but is very rough. This then leads for your brush pens to start fraying and for your brush pens to not last as long.
You could check out my article all about it here.
But anyway the rougher the paper the harder it is going to be illustrate on it and the less time your brush pens are going to last.
On to the next section…
So What Paper Is Good For Calligraphy
Right now I am going to be talking about the top two types of paper that you can use for calligraphy.
If you want to find some more different types of paper I did another article here.
Let’s get started…
Rhodia paper is always being talked about in the lettering industry but it is true this is a very smooth high-quality paper.
I myself have tried this out. I also like the feature that you could get graph lined paper for your guidelines or dotted paper witch is great.
Rhodia paper is also one of the smoothest papers that I have used in calligraphy/brush lettering leading for my brush pens not to fray much as they would with other different types of papers.
But again not the most affordable option. But if you have a pretty big budget this is awesome paper.
This is the number one type of paper that I would recommend to beginners going into lettering or calligraphy.
Next…
I decided that the next one had to be some form of printer paper since a lot of you probably print practice sheets for calligraphy or lettering.
So I did some research ( haven’t printed out practice sheets in a long time so yeah).
I was able to learn that this specific type of paper is very high quality and is a good alternative than using regular printer paper for printing your lettering.
Also find this more affordable than the rhodia paper which is great.
But something that it doesn’t have is graph or dotted lines for your guidelines. But that is fine if you have time to create some awesome outlines for your lettering.
In general very smooth and high quality paper for brush lettering.
Again if you want to find more options you could click here.
Doing Calligraphy on Watercolor Paper Ideas
So right now I am just going to be sharing some ideas that I would recommend if you are going to start doing calligraphy on watercolor paper.
#1: Smoothing the Paper
#2: Watercolor Calligraphy
The very first idea is actually smoothing the paper out. This is something that I also talked about with cardstock in another article.
But anyway I am talking about sanding down your watercolor paper. You could use actual sandpaper or a nail filer.
Remember not to much that is so thin that it is bleed proof.
But anyway there are also some downsides to doing this. Think about it why waste your time getting some sandpaper and smoothing out your paper when you could already buy affordable paper.
Of course, go ahead if for some reason you are only able to find watercolor paper.
But anyway there is another way that is much easier in my opinion if you are only going to be using watercolor paper.
That is learning how to watercolor calligraphy. This is actually very similar to doing brush lettering.
I have also done a tutorial all about it here.
But right now I am just going to be giving you the very basics so that you can get started.
HOLDING THE BRUSH
It is very important that you are always holding the brush at a 65-degree angle. Not like a regular pencil or brush pen.
With brush lettering, you would hold it at a 45-degree angle but because a brush has bristles it is hard to control. So for beginners, it would be better to hold it at a 65-degree angle.
Which looks something like this…
BASIC STROKES
After practicing a bit on how exactly to hold your brush I recommend starting learning the basic strokes.
Even if you have already know what these are and have done them with a different utensil, I still recommend that you practice this. It is very different to letter with a dip pen than with a brush.
But anyway here are the 8 basic strokes:
- Upstroke
- Downstroke
- CompoundCurve
- Ascending Loop
- Descending Loop
- Oval
- Overturn
- Underturn
Now here is a full little picture guide that I have made just for you guys that I have included in all of my other basic stroke guides.
Final Thoughts
You have all just learned everything about if it’s ok to use watercolor paper for calligraphy.
You have also learned some alternatives to using watercolor paper and what you could do to the watercolor paper to use it for calligraphy.
If you are barely starting out learning how to do calligraphy I would recommend checking out my free basic strokes guide with practice sheets that would help you get started.
Click here.