Calligraphy Pen Tips

The Plethora of Tips Demystified

Calligraphy pen tips are specialized equipment, that are designed for a specific purpose or style of writing.

It may not be important for you if you are just getting started with learning basic calligraphy, to get professional grade calligraphy tools. But it does help and makes your life easier if you have the right set of tools from the beginning.

There are different styles of calligraphy tips and it can be a daunting task for a novice to decide on the perfect nib required.

It takes a good understanding of the working mechanism of tips and that of the science of angles and pressure to predict the nib required for a specific task.

The tips are designed to hold on to a certain amount of ink that flows on to the paper while writing. The scientific term for this mechanism is called capillary motion.The angle at which the nib is held and the pressure exerted on the paper decides the amount of ink flowing out of the nib.

Let us have a quick look at various types of tips available in the market.

Types of Calligraphy Tips

Copperplate Tips

Copperplate tips, as the name suggests are designed specifically for the copperplate script. Some of these tips have a peculiar style, somewhat in the shape of an elbow.

The tips are designed in such a manner that angle required for copperplate script is maintained naturally when the nib is connected to a common nib holder pen. For unskilled hands it may be very difficult to control copperplate tips, but then as they say it,

Rome was not built in a day.

If you really want to master the copperplate script and control the copperplate tips then get started immediately with undivided concentration.

Italic Tips

I am yet to see a calligrapher who is not mesmerized by the shear elegance of the italic script. One of the more popular scripts among calligraphers, this demands its own set of calligraphy pen tips.

Italic tips come in various shapes and sizes. When you go to buy an italic nib make sure you ask for a right handed or left handed nib as per your requirement.

Poster Pen

As you might have guessed from the name these tips are larger than most other pen tips. They are mostly used for writing bold letters. So next time you wish to exhibit your calligraphy skills on a poster, you know which nib to use.

Round Hand Tips

These are the most widely used tips. You may use this nib for most of your generic calligraphy work.

The tips come in various sizes starting from an in index of 0 and going up to 6. The size 0 refers to the broadest nib whereas the narrowest nib available is marked by the index 6. The nib edge may be obliquely cut or square cut.

Scroll Tips

Scroll calligraphy pen tips are used for ornamental work where decoration and presentation is expected to go to a very high level of aesthetics. These tips are double pointed to accentuate the artist’s efforts.

Properly chosen calligraphy pen tips can do wonders to the final product. Hope this article was helpful to understand the various types of calligraphy pen tips and their usage.