Looking to improve your calligraphy skills? Or maybe you are just looking for something to do to keep your mind focuses and help reduce stress levels. Calligraphy is a great exercise for focus and mindfulness and the following calligraphy free worksheets are a great place to start. You can either print them or use them to practice with digital drawing software such as Procreate. We included worksheets in various styles, from brush calligraphy to pencil and dip pen versions, and even some modern lettering free worksheets.
Brush calligraphy has become very popular. Not only it’s a very relaxing activity that pairs well with mindfulness practice, it can also be used to create beautiful artistic pieces, decorate bullet journals or even for gifts and cards.
The secret of brush calligraphy is learning about the two types of strokes, upward strokes (thin) and downwards strokes (thick), and how to transition between them. And the best way to learn this is by using calligraphy worksheets for beginners regularly.
Most people will start with drills to practice the different strokes, and move into lettering later. But if you don’t mind your brush lettering not looking perfect on your first attempts, free brush lettering worksheets are more challenging for a beginner.
The following are a few of our favourite brush calligraphy free worksheets that are fun but still demanding. Get your brush pen ready!
Seasonal cards and gifts are even better with a brush calligraphy message, and the following worksheets are great to practice that and get in the mood for the season.
Do you want calligraphy drills to practice your basic strokes? We have two variations here, straight and slanted. Both of them are great to get a feel for brush calligraphy as a beginner.
If you are looking to improve your lettering for your bullet journal, the following worksheets will give you plenty of choice.
Looking to improve your handwriting? This worksheets include both drills and the alphabet to improve your cursive handwriting with pencil or pen.
We have already covered pencil calligraphy for beginners in another article, but here you can find some faux calligraphy practice sheets suitable for pen and paper.
Modern calligraphy is a refreshing new take on traditional hand lettering worksheets. While the basics are pretty much the same, modern calligraphy doesn’t require you to follow the very strict measurements and strokes of traditional fonts. Free worksheets are still very useful because at the end of the day you need to follow certain rules to make the end result harmonious and beautiful. Remember, you still need thin upwards strokes and thick downwards strokes, so if you are not confident grab a few calligraphy drills before you go on more complex lettering.
The second one also has some other styles for calligraphy sheets that you can download and print.
If you enjoy practicing handwriting on an iPad pro, Procreate is likely to be your software of choice. And luckily, there are many resources for digital brush writing enthusiasts that also come with a procreate version you can download for free.
Once you have downloaded your calligraphy free printable worksheets all that is left is actually using them to practice your strokes and learn your fonts.
Which is the most time consuming bit of this entire exercise, but also the most fun. Print a few copies, because you will need them!
Most free calligraphy worksheets will have different variations of a series of letters (alphabet worksheets) or strokes (known as drills as well). Usually they will also have the guides you would use to keep your lettering straight and evenly sized and spaced. On every row you start with the example letter or drill, and usually continue with the graphic repeating several times in lighter and lighter grey. I call that shadow exemplars. In some cases, the sample exemplar has arrows indicating the directions of the strokes, or the worksheet may come with a stroke guide separately.
Some alphabet beginner practice worksheets will have a full line of shadow letters or strokes. More advanced ones gradually remove any shadow guides and leave you with only the ruler guides and the sample exemplar at the beginning of the guide. If you are trying to learn a particular font or style, start easy with a guided worksheet and move on to less guided ones once you can make each letter easily. Trying to “copy” the initial exemplar without any shadow exemplars will annoy you, because you’ll be focusing on copying more than you are focusing on the right strokes.
You can also find printable calligraphy worksheets that are all about abstract images, or decorative drawings. While they are great to practice decorative flourishes, that’s actually only the surface. They are also an awesome tool to practice different strokes.
Remember, classic hand lettering is all about mastering the following strokes:
And all of that either straight or slanted. While you can make doodles for hours in a very mindful way, I find coloring worksheets much more entertaining.
They are also incredibly relaxing and personally they help me a lot when practicing my thin/thick lines so they look clean and even.
The most important thing about practicing hand writing is, without a doubt, repetition. Eventually the strokes will become muscle memory, and you’ll want to graduate into more intricate and complex practice worksheets. Sadly, most of those are paid but you can still find some amazing calligraphy free worksheets from the same authors that make the premium products. Just keep an eye out for giveaways and freebies by subscribing to their newsletters.
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