Confession time! I’m really bad at flourished modern calligraphy style lettering. Yup! I’m not a natural at it. I need at least 15 minutes of warm-up drills to really get my hand and brain to sync up before I even can wrap my head around creating finished work!

Being really bad at flourish style calligraphy doesn’t mean I should avoid it completely or avoid using it in my design work. It just means I need to practice more and give my muscle memory a workout!

I’m really bad at flourished lettering & how I practice

So I created these Flourish Calligraphy Worksheets a while back and didn’t do anything with them other than use them for reference when I had a client ask for a flourished, modern calligraphy style for a piece. As much as I love looking at flourished examples, they seem a little too formal for my laid-back style but it doesn’t mean that I stay away from flourishes completely.

Here’s a quick video that I made showing you how I practice each letter over and over to get the right line weight and consistency in stroke! Trust me! Repetition is key with lettering and I even need to work my muscle memory myself still!!

What I did recently is make a digital version of the flourish alphabet and turned it into calligraphy practice worksheets that you can use too!

You’ll notice that you can use these worksheets with a pointed pen and ink or a small brush pen! Fab right?!!

You can also use your favorite tracing paper to trace, practice and trace some more until you are confident enough to try free-handing your letters!

I feel like the line work on this one is still too rough for my liking, but that’s why warm-up and practice is key!!

I hope you are encouraged to practice and build your hand lettering skills and are reminded that just because it doesn’t come easily, it doesn’t mean we should avoid it! If you’ve used the flourish guide to practice too, let me know by commenting or tagging me in a post!!

To have a look at my modern calligraphy workbooks and courses, click here.

Happy Practicing!!

xx Nicki