Alright, friend, this tutorial has been long awaited! I’ll be honest, I may have put this one off, because, well, I have a hard time with capital letters too! But I have learned a bit in the last couple years of hand-lettering, so I might as well show you what works for me!
Below I have a free download for you with the capital alphabet done two ways! I recommend using this printable by printing it out once and then using tracing paper to practice over it. (The tracing paper creates a smooth surface for your pen, and it’s also much more cost efficient than printing out the practice sheets a bunch of times.)
I do want to stress that if you do not know anything about calligraphy or hand lettering, I highly suggest you check out my Faux Calligraphy and Brush pen Calligraphy Basics posts, and then come on back here. (And try out my bounce lettering as well.)
Now that you understand the basics of the upstrokes and the dwnstrokes, and you feel pretty good about lowercase letters, its time to work on capitals!
Click here or on the image below to download your free capital letters practice sheet.
I have a video showing how I create each of these versions of capital letters as well! So be sure to watch that for more tips and information on capital letters.
Main things I have learned about brush calligraphy capital letters
It just takes practice!!!
I don’t think anyone learning a new skill likes to be told they just need to practice, but really its true! I can show you how I do things, but the beauty of hand-lettering is that everyone’s brain and hands work differently, and no one can create the exact same things! I encourage you to bust out the blank practice sheet and try creating the capital alphabet on your own! Try creating letters with more swoops and swirls, or simple straight lines, or at different heights and widths!
Even if you hate what you are coming up with, the only real way to improve is with practice!
Choose if you want your capital letter to connect with the rest of the word or not.
One of the questions I get a lot is how to connect the capital letter to the rest of the word. This can be so tricky! A lot of capital letters are hard to connect without looking weird. But, there are always ways to connect the letters if you really want them to. -this really takes practice to learn which styles will lend well to connecting and which capitals won’t! (See the image below with my two types of capital “G”s; one connects perfectly, but the other can’t connect to the rest of the word as it is.)
SOOO, this is all to say, if you want your capital letter to connect, look for a style that will be able to do so. BUT, don’t feel like you HAVE to connect your capital letters to the rest of the word! You get to have complete creativity with what you create! There are no rules!
For example, in the video above (towards the end), I write out the word “Savior”. I could have used the second style of “S” in my practice sheet to allow my word to all be connected, but I chose to use the more whimsical style “S” and leave it disconnected. This then gave me the idea to keep with the whimsy-ness and disconnect my “v” as well! The resulting “savior” had this really neat and unique style to it that I would never have created if I tried to stick with the more traditional, all-connected, style!
Keep your eyes peeled
This tip is really for all hand-lettering, not just for capital letters, but it really is a great way to learn. One of the things that has helped me to develop my own lettering style and learn how to work with capitals, is looking at other peoples work. I highly recommend going on Instagram, Pinterest, or just google searching to see what other hand-letters do.
I wouldn’t say to copy them, but it can be so helpful to decide what styles you like or don’t like- and it can give you ideas of other letter shapes that I didn’t do. (There are seriously dozens of ways you can write each letter and I only brushed on two in my printable above!) This is why I share my lettering style in free printables for you! Because my hope is that it will help you learn the basics that you can expand and grow with!
Materials Used
Tombow Fudenosuke Soft Tip Brush Pen (Link for the set of three types of Fudenosuke brush pens. I highly recommend all of them for beginner or advanced lettering!)
Helpful Links
Brush Pen Caligraphy Basics Tutorial
Faux Calligraphy Basics Tutorial
