This is a 10-week course that starts on Thursday 27th May and runs every Thursday until 29th July. 

Tutor: Claire Delfont

This comprehensive course teaches all the skills needed to master the quintessential calligraphy tool, a pointed nib! From poetry to party invites, you’ll acquire the skills needed to add gorgeous, hand-lettered details to all kinds of stationery, elevate your gifting and add personalised touches to the home.

You will start by learning how to control your nib and ink flow and progress to forming elegant letterforms and styling your calligraphy by altering the angle and width of your letters.

Although modern calligraphy embraces each scribes' particular quirks and style, you’ll learn to adapt your own style for any occasion and develop your lettering through clear lesson plans and guided projects. Use contrasting scripts and alter the size and weight of your calligraphy. Learn to blend with coloured and metallic ink paints; try out different pointed nibs to find the one you love; work on different kinds of cards; work onto envelopes; create simple layouts and make designs using flourishes and finish the course with a real understanding of the foundations of lettering.

With demonstrations by your tutor each week to watch and copy, discover ways to add personality to your work by bouncing letters, flourishing, and creating simple layouts.  Our drills, exercises, challenges, and projects give plenty of opportunities to practice and experiment with every technique. And with one-on-one feedback and Q&A sessions each week, your ability will increase as we encourage you to assess your own work and understand how to improve and develop your calligraphy far beyond this course.

Once you've ordered, you'll receive a link to the Zoom meeting. On the day, use that link to join the workshop. Class sizes are kept small, so you can easily ask questions and get lots of one-on-one time with your tutors. Zoom is free and easy to use, on any device. You're in control of your privacy - you can mute yourself and hide your webcam if and when you prefer.

With one-to-one feedback and Q&A sessions each week, your ability will increase as we encourage you to assess your own work and understand how to improve and develop your calligraphy far beyond this course. If you aren’t able to attend one of the sessions then we will record it for you.

Tickets include our fabulous Calligraphy Craft Box which means you will have everything you need to complete all of the lessons and projects included in the course.

Week 1: Capital letters

Ink and gold mica

Week 2: Guidelines & lowercase letters

Blending inks

Week 3: Connections, exit, and entry strokes

Working onto black

Week 4: Bounce

Letter by letter - elastic letters

Week 5: Flourishes

Week 6: angles, letter families

Changing style and blending metallics

Week 7: Flourishes Continued

Different nibs and traveling across the paper

Week 8: Mini Capitals and mixing styles

Gift tags and cards - design hierarchy

Week 9: Centering and balancing layouts

Week 10: Typographic Terms and problem solving

Designing and perfecting a quote design

Every session of this course will be recorded, so if you miss a week you will able to watch the recording to catch up!

Your Craft box includes:

A straight/oblique pen holder, 3 nibs in a handy storage tin, a set of 4 calligraphy inks, coloured notelets, envelopes, gift tags, 2 tubes of gouache, 3 Finetec metallic paints, a layout pad, a Rhodia dot pad, templates, cards, and your worksheets.

In addition, you will need: a pencil, ruler, rubber, and though not essential, we would recommend having a light pad which is available to purchase from our shop. Lastly, you will need a jar of water, and please protect the surface that you work on in case of ink spills.

An online workshop is a wonderful way to learn calligraphy, as you are able to watch your tutor demonstrate up close on your screen so that every letter stroke and movement of the pen and hand is magnified.

Included within this ticket price is postage to UK mainland only, no Islands or Highlands. For other UK and international locations, please email Emily at info@kirstenburke.co.uk with your name, address and the workshop/course title and date you would like to attend and she will be able to let you know the additional postage charge and eta for your kit via Royal Mail.

System requirements

This workshop will be hosted via Zoom. To participate, you need a computer that has video and audio capabilities. We'd recommend using a laptop so you can easily tilt your webcam towards your work so we can see your progress. If you have a PC with a fixed webcam you can always hold your work up to it. If you opt for using a smartphone with the Zoom app, you will need a holder or somewhere to place it throughout the workshop so that your hands are free to do calligraphy and you may find it trickier to view the demonstrations at such a small size.

You will need a good WiFi connection. You can find the full system requirements here.

PLEASE NOTE Once your kit has been posted, workshop tickets are not refundable. This does not affect your statutory rights.