Branch Out: Calligraphy

So I've known how to do calligraphy since 6th grade, and I come back to it every once in a while for occasions like greeting cards and invitations. Recently I had two birthdays to give (super cool fancy pop up) cards for and I thought I'd customize the envelopes nicely to make the effort feel more sincere.

Since I don't practice calligraphy all the time, it takes some time for me to plan out things to make them look consistent, balanced and evenly spaced. In this case, I also came up with doing an ornate drop cap for each name while testing out the look with gold ink via trusty gel pen.

I then wrote out each name in the appropriate size in dark ink to trace out on the front of each envelope so I could go over each letter in gold with pen since I don't have gold calligraphy ink.

Starting with the space around the first letter, I lightly drew in the embellishment in pencil. Then I went over the outside border in silver gel pen as an accent to match the silver that will be on the letter.