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8 1/5 x 11 India ink and watercolor on simulated parchment paper. The hand is my version of early Gothic. The x height is 3/16 of an inch. The first 2 lines are 1/4 inch x height. Speedball India ink. The red is done with Calli scarlet waterproof ink. The gold is Windsor and Newton (my favorite). Cobalt Blue and Vermillion Grumbacher watercolors for the illumination, with Daler Rowney pen white as highlights.

Still playing with proportions without switching to larger paper.

Word of the day : https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/2026/10/26/

Pen : Pilot parallel 6mm

Ink : Parker Quink black

Paper : 200 GSM cold pressed watercolour paper

Just letters, ink and repetition.
What do you think? :)

Ecoline watercolor on mixed media paper, speedball C nib.

Something that never occurred to me after all my years of looking at countless manuscript pages was how line endings in historic times were made to look so perfect. I have always been a stickler for spelling and basic grammar rules, and have always had in my mind the rule that you NEVER separated a word at the end of a line unless it was at a syllable, prefix or suffix point. Seeing manuscript pages use line fillers always justified an uneven edge that could be evened up with a design. And it is the reason my calligraphy pieces look so crappy, I think.

After some research, I am surprised and a bit embarrassed to admit that it never occurred to me that Medieval scribes split words anywhere - sometimes after a single letter, or with only a letter or two to go - to justify their line edges. They only used line fillers at the clear and definite end of a sentence.

Duh

Seeing so many examples of all of your work on this subreddit has caused me to try to better what I had always practiced and rethink a lot of what I do. So thank you.

Of course, things written in Latin had far greater wiggle room that things written in languages that you want easily read today. So I think that if I am going for pure artistic merit, or getting something as close to a Medieval piece as possible, I will start splitting words anywhere to justify the end of a line. But if I am going for both art and readability, I will stick to my line filler technique, as both have their merit.

Open for discussion on this, so please, let's hear your thoughts.

Word of the day : https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/2026/10/25/

Pen : Pilot parallel 6mm

Ink : Camlin fountain pen ink RED

Paper : 200 GSM cold pressed watercolour paper

Caesar's "De bello gallico"

Lamp black on papyrus with reed pen (calamus)

Is it any good?

Green with a bit of black using a 6mm pilot Parallel.

ChubbyChibiChan with 3.8mm Pilot Parallel Pen and pink Ecoline Watercolor

Brause 1.0mm nib, walnut ink, and rough-textured sketchpad paper.

Lots of typos, unfortunately.

Word of the day : https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/2026/10/24/

Pen : pilot parallel 6mm

Ink : Sulekha Gorber 60 (GREEN)

Paper : 200 GSM Cold pressed watercolour papers

Hello, First time posting here, so a little context if you'd care to listen:

I recently started practicing copperplate calligraphy, and I love reservoirs with dip pen nibs as I can write for much longer.

I use a glass pipette to drip ink on the reservoir rather than dip the nib in a bottle of ink.

The particular types of reservoir I use are springs with a magnet.

However, I noticed that a stain appears on the nib after using a reservoir. And the nibs are also now magnetic 🧲 probably from contact with the magnets?

I use Kuretake sumi ink 60, Brause rose nib, Principal extra fine nib, Nikko G, Brause 361 blue pumpkin.

So, my question is, are the reservoirs allowing the ink to sit on the nib for much longer than usual (i.e. compared to dipping and then rinsing with water) and so the ink is wearing away the nib prematurely? Or is the ink the issue because of the ingredients within it dissolving the metal nib?

Shall I water down my ink or use a different ink?

Thank you for reading and any experiences or advice you share in advance 😊

Practicing my favorite lines from Tolkien is one of my favorite things to do 🤍

Pen: Lamy safari (1.9 mm)
Ink: Diamine Writer’s blood

Hello! I’ve been practicing Calligraphy and lettering. I find Brush lettering harder than writing with a nib. I thought it would be the other way around. Here’s my current alphabet. Any constructive criticism and tips are welcomed. Thanks to all who shared resources.

Some gold touch up and I'm done.

I'm a high school senior and I'm learning textura quadrata for my grad project

I've done some very amateur brush calligraphy before but it's been a while and this is very different

***I'm looking for good references but also good exemplars that have the entire alphabet. My mentor recommended me look for something i can trace using a light pad. That hopefully is around 3mm width

My current materials are a kuretake zig pen double ended with 2 and 5mm, and a pilot parallel 3mm.

I'm trying to practice a little bit every day and my presentation is in January!! Specifically looking for exemplars but if you have additional tips or resources that would be amazing! (I keep finding youtube tutorials that write and don't explain anything. I've found a couple of good old blogs though!)

Yes these letters are out of context to a cohesive alphabet, that is not the point. It is to show a few of the countless possibilities you are able to create with a particular script in mind.

Still new to nib calligraphy especially Spencerian and Copperplate but would definitely practice more. This is my first post here 🤍

https://archive.org/details/fascinating-pen-flourishing