Do you want to take your calligraphy to the next level? Have you always been dreaming about adding those beautiful swirls and strokes around your letters that you see on Instagram all the time?
But...you don’t know where to start from?
We’ve got you covered!
In this blog, I wanna take you through the basics of flourishing and help you get started!
First things first, what is flourishing?
A flourish is a decorative stroke that enhances your letterforms, they add elegance, drama, and an overall aesthetic appeal to your finished work.
Flourishes should be a natural extension of your letters, something that was meant to be there. We want it to be pleasing & enjoyable so that the viewer can appreciate the beauty of flourishes.
I love quoting my teacher Barbara Calzolari over here as she says, "Flourishing as the icing on top of your cake" We first need to make sure that the cake tastes really good, and only after that can we add this beautiful, decorative icing on the top to enhance the overall appeal.
Now, what’s the objective of flourishing?
To increase the overall aesthetic of your script
To create balance and cover negative space.
Here are three basic rules that should help you while getting started…
1. Maintain the shape of the oval: The shape of all our flourishes should follow the shape of an oval. Ideally, the oval should be parallel to the 55-degree angle or the horizontal line.
2. Stroke intersection: Two hairline strokes can intersect, a hairline and thick stroke can intersect but two thick strokes should never intersect as it creates a big blob of ink and ruins the delicacy of the script.
3. Angle of intersection: The angle of intersection of two strokes should be aimed at creating a 90-degree angle. Of course, your eye may allow some variations sometimes but it should more or less intersect at a right angle.
If you're interested to learn about this in-depth, check out our upcoming workshop on Flourishing. I cover my golden rules for flourishing, teach basic forms and shapes and go through a plethora of examples using my stroke by stroke approach in our 5 - hour live class.
(If you have any doubts regarding the workshop, hit reply on this mail and we'll be more than happy to help you out)
And if you this blog useful, be sure to let us know by taking a screenshot of your favorite part of the blog (the one that gave you an 'aha' moment) and posting it on Instagram, don't forget to tag us @bombaylettering ❤️