To warm-up for calligraphy or test different nibs, I write the “quick brown fox…” thing.  For more practice, I have several pangrams I use or give to my students. 

When I’m waiting to leave for an appointment I sometimes use a chisel point calligraphy practice marker to doodle universal strokes or specific letters I want to improve. I try to fill a whole page, but that gets boring quickly. 

So what can I do to make calligraphy practice fun, enjoyable, or purposeful?

Here are some ideas I found. Maybe there’s some that will work for you. I’d also like to know what you do to practice calligraphy. Please leave me ideas in the comments below.

These may be done in any script you want to use. Write them in more than one script if you want. 

1. Write a collection of words with double letters, like “ss” or “tt” etc. 
2. Find interesting proverbs or phrases you like. Write them out with their meaning. Or do this with jokes or puns you find funny.
3. Write a detailed review of the last book or movie you saw.
4. Take a page from any book. Write it’s words out without any break between letters. Attempt to keep the letters consistently spaced apart.
5. Go through the alphabet writing a short word or person’s name for each letter. To take this to the next level add flourishes to any ascenders, descenders, or the first or last letter. This one tests your mind too.
6. Write a poem, or nursery rhyme using three different nib sizes or inks. Notice the differences.
7. Find an appropriate quote and work it into a finished piece to give as a gift to a friend, to Their Majesties as a gift or largess or as a competition prize. You might make it with colored inks or paint thinned to use with a dip pen. To make it fancier include a fancy beginning capital letter, a versal.
8. Select a Calontir song. Work it into a finished piece to give to a bard. A war song would make a great gift for a fighter.
9. Select one of these top ten lists to write out.
10. Make something nice for yourself. (I’m a giver, so this one is hard for me to do.)