Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

Pt I: The Description

“Calligraphy is an art form that uses ink and brush to express the very souls of

words on paper” (Akagawa). My genius hour project topic is calligraphy. The quote I

picked expresses the beauty of writing in calligraphy. I don’t think everyone actually

realizes the true beauty of this art form. Having to learn every little aspect of each letter

was very difficult; but that’s the thing that makes calligraphy such a beautiful thing . It’s

especially hard when writing a word, you aren’t able to pause and think about what the

next letter looks like; otherwise the ink will flood the paper and you have to start over . I

don’t think I put any thought into how complicated calligraphy was before I chose it as

my topic for genius hour. This project has a lot to deal with patience. When writing, you

have to sit straight with your feet on the floor. You have to hold the pens at a certain

angle and write slowly, but not too slowly.

At first, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to pick as my genius hour project. I

never thought about something I had wanted to take time and learn. So I set out on an

adventure to Pinterest to see what different hobbies I could find . It took me awhile to

find something that looked interesting. When I ran into the whole calligraphy thing, it

interested me because it was something I thought about learning before . I never

thought I could have the time to learn about it or even do it, but this class gave me that
Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

chance. Throughout my life, when I seen calligraphy letters, I wondered how people

even accomplished writing in such a beautiful manner. Looking back, now that I know,

i’m not sure I would have picked the same topic. Calligraphy takes a lot of time, effort

and patience. Honestly, during this year it's been hard to focus on learning this and

being patient with it. I’m not sure how many times I got frustrated with this project but I

know it was a lot.

After reading the “How-To-Book”, I began my journey on learning how to actually

write Calligraphy. When starting I was excited because I’ve always wanted to learn this.

After I started writing I didn’t want to put the ink pen down, even though I was an

absolute mess with ink. The thing that probably motivated me the most was my

boyfriend. There were a lot of days I didn’t want to work on my project because I was

just exhausted but he pushed me through it and helped me with the research and some

of the writing.

It was a good thing having him help and motivate me throughout my process

because he’s been wanting to learn calligraphy also. So it wasn’t just me learning

calligraphy during this process, I also taught him. Only one other person through my

experience has helped me besides my boyfriend and that was my friend Danielle . She

knows a little more about calligraphy than me. She was writing the first letter on each
Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

line so that I could look at it and learn it. I think having her do that for me helped me a

lot because it's not easy to just learn it from the book. It’s easier to watch someone write

the letter and then try it yourself.

Completing my Genius Hour project was pretty easy, there’s not a whole lot to

learn about calligraphy. Unless you go through the history and different fonts of it. I only

did two different fonts which included; Unicals and Gothic Letters. To start my

calligraphy journey, I had to go to the craft store and find a calligraphy kit . Then when I

got home I opened it right away because I couldn’t wait. I didn’t even want to read the

book on how to do it, but I did. I only worked on the project for a couple of days because

to me it seemed easy; or so I thought..

Pt II: Challenges

The biggest challenge I went through at the beginning of my journey was how to

get the ink out of the pens. I still have trouble trying to get it out but for some reason it's

a lot easier than before. I haven’t figured out why it was such a task at first but I think it
Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

has something to do with the way I tilt the ink pen and how much pressure I put down

on the pen.

At first, the ink wasn’t coming out no matter what I tried. I then resorted to the

idea of shaking the pen vigorously up and down to see if that would help; that resulted

in ink going everywhere which, was also another problem I had. Once I got the ink to

come out of the pen, it would go either all over my hand, or all over the paper. I couldn’t

figure out a solution on how to accommodate these problems.

Another challenge I had with this project was time management . It was hard to

manage my time because I was absent and sick a lot this year. It was hard trying to find

time between school and all my hospital and doctor visits; but somehow I found a way

to cope and I got it done.

After getting a better idea of calligraphy, next time I write, I think it would be a

better idea to get the dip-ink pens. That way I won’t have any problems with ink coming

out of the pen; and it will also probably be less of a mess. Even though I didn’t

necessarily overcome these challenges yet, I learned that I don’t have a lot of patience

which is a very important thing to have while doing such a project. I had a lot of anger

because of this and I ended up throwing things; after doing calligraphy a couple of

times, it's helped me learn to control my anger and work on my patience.

Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

During my experience with calligraphy, I also had trouble learning to do thin and

thick lines; because there’s a couple different pens, I wasn’t sure what to do with it .

Each pen has a different thickness so it made it harder for me to understand how to use

them because I wasn’t sure which pen to use for the letters. I resulted in using one of

the medium sized pens and I learned that with this pen, all you have to do is press down

harder for thick lines and lift up for thin lines.

Pt III: Successes

My biggest success throughout this genius hour project was my final product.

Keeping in mind, I didn’t work on calligraphy a lot because there wasn’t much to do, my

final product was the alphabet in the font Unicals. When I started, I wasn’t sure which

pen to use so i just picked the thinnest one I had; for some reason, it felt like the thin

pen wrote easier than the rest of them. My hand just flew with the letters and it worked
Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

well for me. At first, it didn’t look that great to me; I was just going along with it trying my

best to get it done, but after I was finished I was completely amazed by how great it

looked. When looking at it, you wouldn’t even tell that I was new at doing calligraphy.

After realizing how good I was at that font, it makes me want to learn more; next I’m

interested in learning words and sentences in the same font because it’s so beautiful.

Seeing the improvement throughout my time made me feel great. At the

beginning of my journey, I thought learning calligraphy was going to be hard but it

wasn’t; yes, it was a long process but it was definitely worth it in the end. I only did the

alphabet in two different fonts, unicals and gothic, and they both turned out good but my

favorite is the unicals. Mostly because it was easy and there wasn’t many parts to it; but

the gothic font, you had to lift the pen up multiple times just to finish one letter.

The thing that helped me best through this was tracing the letter and words from

the book and then trying them on my own. I think doing this was the best way for me to

learn calligraphy because it was easier for me to see how the letters and words go .

Pt IV: Learning Curve

I’ve not only learned things about calligraphy but myself as well. Many things

were hard for me through this project especially since I did something I shouldn’t have,

procrastinate. At the same time, it didn’t take that long to get the hang of how to do it.
Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

I still have much to learn before I can actually master the true art of calligraphy

but, at this moment, I can look at the book and learn the letters but I want to be able to

actually know how to write in calligraphy, without looking at the book. The times that I’ve

practiced, I traced the letter or the word and then tried it myself. I thought doing that

would help me learn in the best way I could; and in some ways it did . Most of the work I

did with this method turned out surprisingly good for a beginner.

I've learned that not everything you do is going to turn out perfect and that’s

okay. Things take a lot of time and practice; but even after that it won’t be perfect . It

took me a long time to realize that and I think that’s why I had such a struggle with not

getting frustrated. After I finished my project I came to realize that the beauty is the time

and effort you put into it.

Calligraphy isn’t something you can learn overnight and I should’ve known that. I

may have only practiced a few times, but I got frustrated a lot. Doing this project made

me realize that I have no patience whatsoever; and that is something I need to work on

while continuing my journey.

Pt V: Research Questions

Unlike other Genius Hour projects, mine didn’t have many questions to answer

because most of it was common sense. To begin with I wanted to know the history
Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

behind it. So, my first question was, where did calligraphy originate? They began to

practice calligraphy in the 7th century in China. An article says, “They began to practice

it only in the 7th cent. AD, with the introduction of Buddhist manuscripts from China.

Kuwait, c.800, invented the syllabic script, which was based on Chinese characters”

(“Calligraphy”). Knowing where this type of writing came from and when it first started is

important because it was fascinating to see how long calligraphy has been around . The

word calligraphy comes from an Ancient Greek word, Kallos means beauty and Graphe

means writing; so basically calligraphy is another word for beautiful writing.

I also wanted to know how many different calligraphic fonts there are. There are

nine all together; Unicals, Half- Unicals, Insular Minuscule, Caroline Minuscule, Gothic

Black Letter, Batarde, Humanistic Minuscule, and Italic. The two fonts that I focused on

during my journey was Unicals, and Gothic Black Letter. Unicals turned out to be my

favorite because it was simple and had a beautiful outcome. I didn’t really have a choice

in which fonts I did because those were the only two fonts in the how-to-book.

To actually begin my journey, I needed to know how to do it. I needed to know

how to sit, how to position my paper, and how to hold the pen. When researching, it

said I needed to sit in an upright position with my feet flat on the floor . I had to have

room all around me so that I could move my hand freely. In one of the article I read it
Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

said, “You’ll want to make sure that you can move your arms around freely and that you

have enough room around yourself so that you don’t knock anything over when you

move further down, turn your paper, or dip into your ink bottle. When writing calligraphy,

you’ll move your whole arm including the elbow, not just your hand” (“A Beginner’s

Guide to Modern Calligraphy”). It’s very important to know these things because it helps

with your writing. Doing one wrong thing could completely mess up your art and you will

have to restart.

Another thing I had to know before I began was what materials I needed to begin

this process. Finding the answer to that was pretty simple because everything I needed

came in one kit. This kit came with two pens, four nibs, twelve different ink cartridges, a

how to book, and practice paper. The nibs are a very important part of calligraphy; it

says, “The tip size of a nib will have the biggest impact on how a fountain pen writes .

Larger tip sizes create wide lines suitable for bold writing and showcasing the ink used,

but many people prefer smaller tip sizes for everyday writing because they create a line

width closer to that of a typical ballpoint or gel pen” (“Guide to Fountain Pen Nibs:

Choosing a Fountain Pen Nib”). The nibs came in different sizes used to create thick

and thin lines, which brings me to my next research question; how do I create thick and

thin lines in a letter?

Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

It took me awhile to find the answer to this; I realized, after doing some research,

that it all came down to how you hold the pen, the pressure you put down on the pen,

and which nib you used for that letter. I read “To get a feeling for the nib and study its

effects, it’s best to write very slowly in the beginning. A few general rules are: hold the

pen at an approximate forty-five degree angle from the paper, apply pressure on the

downstrokes, and no pressure on the upstrokes” (“A Beginner’s Guide to Modern

Calligraphy”). When I first began I had a lot of trouble with this because I would shake

the pen and ink would go everywhere; but after awhile I got the hang of it even though I

still sometimes have trouble.

The final thing I needed to know was what the most important thing to know

about calligraphy was. Everything about calligraphy comes back to time and patience .

“At the beginning, it can be discouraging to be starting from the ground up, practicing

mundane ‘drills’ and feeling like your skills will never be as advanced as you’d like . But

calligraphy and lettering are specialized skills. And just like you wouldn’t pick up an

instrument and know how to play a song right away, you can’t just pick up a brush pen

and be a master at calligraphy or lettering. You need to practice a lot. Dedicate time for

practice every single day, and you will get better. I promise” (“5 Things To Know Before

Jumping into Calligraphy”). Everyone who learns calligraphy has to have time and

patience otherwise it will make them frustrated and they won’t be able to enjoy it; this is
Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

almost what happened to me. In the beginning I was so frustrated that I wanted to just

give up, then my patience got a little better over time and I ended up enjoying it a lot .

Citations

Bausenhardt, Julia. "A Beginner’s Guide to Modern Caligraphy."

Juliabausenhardt, Julia bausenhardt, juliabausenhardt.com/

a-beginners-guide-to-modern-calligraphy/. Accessed 7 May 2018.

"A Beginners Guide to Modern Calligraphy." Instruck Studio, www.inkstruck.com/

calligraphy-for-beginners/. Accessed 7 May 2018.

Bugbee, Lindsey. "The Beginners Guide to Modern Calligraphy." The Postman’s

Knock, thepostmansknock.com/beginners-guide-modern-calligraphy/.

Accessed 7 May 2018.

"The Caligraphy Stars of Instagram." The New Yorker,

www.newyorker.com/culture/

cultural-comment/calligraphy-stars-instagram. Accessed 7 May 2018

Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018

"Calligraphy for Beginners: Using a Pointed Pen." JetPens.com,

www.jetpens.com/

blog/calligraphy-for-beginners-using-a-pointed-pen/pt/888. Accessed 7 May

2018.

"8 Tips For Anyone Who Wants To Learn Calligraphy And Hand-Lettering."

Buzzfeed, www.buzzfeed.com/rachelwmiller/

youve-got-the-write-stuff-baby?utm_term=.wpMzjx4DK5#.ycW0oDVY3R. Accessed

May 2018

"History of Calligraphy." Manuscript Ltd, www.calligraphy.co.uk/

history-of-calligraphy/history-of-calligraphy/. Accessed 7 May 2018.

"Top 20 Most Beautiful Calligraphy Fonts." Vector Diary, www.vectordiary.com/

fonts/top-20-most-beautiful-calligraphy-fonts/. Accessed 7 May 2018.

Sarah Piontkowski

Mr. Libeg

Honors English III

Period 8

May 14, 2018