Step-by-Step Guide to Faking Calligraphy like a Pro (+ Free Practice Sheets!)

Fake Calligraphy (or Faux Calligraphy) is something that I believe anyone can learn and master. It is an easy way to spice up plain cursive, especially for addressing envelopes or any other sort of craft project. Faking calligraphy is as simple as writing in cursive plus a few more strokes of your pen to add width to your downstrokes.

Below I show the difference in final product between Faux Calligraphy and “Real” Calligraphy. Both look like calligraphy in the end, but the biggest difference between them is that the faux version took me 5-6 minutes, rather than the “real,” which took me about a minute. So learning calligraphy saves time, but fake calligraphy is a great option for those who don’t have their calligraphy perfected yet.

In the above photo, I used my Micron 08 pen for the faux calligraphy, and a black Pentel Sign Pen for the “Real” calligraphy!

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO FAKE CALLIGRAPHY?

There are plenty of reasons to fake calligraphy.  First of all, not everyone has the skillset needed to perform real calligraphy. It is extremely tedious and you need a special type of hand control in order to do thin and thick strokes in one seamless move, and that’s okay! Secondly, sometimes you want to add calligraphy to something in a specific color or with a specific pen that is not a brush pen or calligrapher’s ink.  I see this often in my own life when using Sharpies, Gel Pens, etc. These pens come in a number of cool colors, but are a completely different style and type of pen than those used for calligraphy. So, to do calligraphy using those fun colors, the best (and only) option is to do fake calligraphy

WHAT KIND OF PENS ARE BEST FOR FAKE CALLIGRAPHY?

Literally any type of pen in which you are able to easily thicken the line can be used for faux calligraphy. Some super thin pens, like regular ball point pens, may not work as well, because it is harder to color in the space. But there are so many pens and markers that do. Some of my favorites are Sakura Moonlight Gelly Roll Pens, Sakura White Gelly Roll Pens, any Crayola markers (thick or thin), Sharpies, that I used in my instruction photos below, Sharpie Pens, and Stabilo Point 68 pens.

SO, HOW DO I “FAKE” CALLIGRAPHY?

STEP 1: WRITE OUR YOUR BASIC CURSIVE

This can be your regular cursive, the one that comes natural to you, or you can use a script font of your choosing to imitate the letters, especially until you feel comfortable enough to either do it on your own or until you develop your “signature” script.

When I taught myself calligraphy and wrote my ‘5 Steps I Took to Teaching Myself Calligraphy‘ blog post, I noted that learning cursive, or perfecting the cursive you were taught as a kid, was an essential step in how I learned calligraphy. It also is easier to do faux calligraphy when you’re more comfortable with cursive, even if you use a more modern lettering style.

STEP 2: IDENTIFY THE DOWNSTROKES

After you write out your words in the cursive or lettering style you choose, pretend to do each letter’s movement again to identify which parts of each letter are written when your pen is going down towards the bottom of the paper. This is what is considered your “downstrokes.” In the photo above, I identify these downstrokes with little arrows to the left of the original line. You don’t have to write the arrows like I did, instead just focus on taking your time with each individual letter to identify all the down-strokes in your head.

The arrows were drawn with a pink Sakura Gelly Roll Pen that can be found in this pack!

STEP 3: DRAW GUIDE FOR THICKENING DOWNSTROKES

On each down-stroke, depending on the thickness of pen you’re using, draw a guide (another line connecting it to the original letter) an additional 2-3 pen strokes to the right of the original line.  If you do not have enough room to add that additional width on those downstrokes to the right, you can either do it to the left instead or put a little bit of width on each side of the original line.

When you draw the guide, make sure to taper how much width you add when coming off or connecting to a thinner line (which are called upstrokes). This, once filled in, will give off the impression that it was a natural addition, like it is with real calligraphy. To make this more seamless, follow the upstroke again and draw your downstroke starting at the moment it transitions from upstroke to downstroke.

STEP 4: FILL IN ADDED WIDTH

Now that your guides are complete, go ahead and fill in the empty space between the original line and the additional width you added in Step 3. Make sure that wherever you added that extra width for the down strokes, it transitions seamlessly from the thinner line (the upstrokes).  When filling in, it’s always a good idea to run your pen over the thin strokes again, without adding extra width, so the letter looks like it has the same amount of ink applied. This will give it a more natural look.

STEP 5: PRACTICE!

As a fun added bonus, I created lowercase alphabet faux calligraphy worksheets for you to practice with! You can either print them out and practice with pens, or import into an app like Procreate to practice your digital faux calligraphy! Access it by clicking below:

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*This blog post was updated on Monday, June 17, 2019