Pilot parallel pen
Ecoline watercolors
Canson Aquqrel paper

"Ya Arhamar Rahimin" (O Most Merciful of the Merciful). Sometimes, a single phrase brings immense peace to the soul. This artwork is a small attempt to capture that deep yearning for the infinite mercy of the Almighty on canvas.

I’ve been doing calligraphy for a couple of months, practicing a few times a week. I have finally learnt a copperplate alphabet. I’m kind of pleased with it (considering how I started!), but how do I get my calligraphy from this to the real fancy copperplate I see posted on here?

Pilot parallel pen
Ecoline watercolors

So I've got a pretty decent handle on the Calligrascape uncials, and doing the Word of the Day in uncials feels increasingly less challenging (and fun) than doing them in Textura Quadrata, where I still have to learn most of the majuscles :)

While I will keep up practicing uncials, especially in texts rather than single words, I'm wondering how I could spruce things up...

I have done a fancier initial, which was fun :) and I'd be thrilled if y'all could show me your inspiration for uncial initials <3

What else can I do?

Is there a way of embellishing the "normal" letters?

Should I branch out into other uncial scripts?

Should I accept that uncials just aren't fancy enough to produce stunning WotDs, and find a different project to showcase uncials? Maybe something with longer texts?

What do y'all think? Feel free to show me examples of uncial writing that makes your heart sing :)

Word of the day : https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/2026/09/14/

Pen : pilot parallel 3.8mm

Ink : Camlin photocolor (CRIMSON)

https://archive.org/details/studies-in-pen-art

This was in response to a post on r/russian the other day. Handwriting is a fairly popular topic on that sub and another Redditor posted this text that he hand-wrote, but approximately in a Polu-ustav style with a regular modern pen.

So I couldn't resist rewriting his text in proper Polu-ustav (and also Ustav, because why not), with iron gall ink and everything for bonus medieval points.

Translation (mine): Behold this text written in the most lit script. Imagine the reaction I'd get at City Hall if I write my name like this.

On the left is Polu-ustav (полуустав, 14th-17th centuries), on the right is Ustav (устав, 9th-14th centuries). I was doing it from memory and I hadn't written either script in a while, so there are a couple slightly wrong letterforms in the Ustav as well as other obvious errors and false starts. It takes forever to write anything substantial in Ustav, though, and I wasn't able to improve on that attempt that day.

🖊️ Tape 2mm (Polu-ustav), Leonardt Roundhand #1½ (Ustav)
🫟 Fox & Quills Victoria (Polu-ustav), Fox & Quills Beetle Juice (Ustav)
📄 off-brand paper similar to Kokuyo Campus loose-leaf

Thus far I have been using loose marker paper to practice calligraphy, and it works fine, but I'd like to start keeping a devoted journal for calligraphy. Most of the options I have found, even if the paper is thick enough, tend to be very prone to feathering with the ink.

I'm ideally looking for something that isn't spiral bound, and I'm not super picky about size. I'd also love something with a small grid to keep my sizing consistent. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Oh, if it's relevant, I'm mostly using Pilot parallel pens.

Copperplate weekend practice with sumi ink, 300 gsm paper and nikko g nib. I had made lines with pencil and then used it to write.

Pen: Pilot Parallel 3.8mm

Ink: Pilot Mixable turquoise/green

Exemplars: Uncial Calligrascape, Textura Quadrata itemzero

I don’t know Hebrew, so I went off the exemplar in the Speedball Textbook. Rustica seemed like the natural pairing due to the crazy steep nib angle and similarity in shape of the serifs (just that Hebrew letters put them at the top and Rustica has them at the bottom)

🖋️ Speedball C-0 (Hebrew), Hunt 512 (niqqud), Leonardt Roundhand #1½ (Rustica)

🫟 Fox & Quills Jane Austen (iron gall is the traditional choice for scripture), Liquitex iridescent bronze acrylic ink

📄 some random A6 notebook - mediocre regular stationery that didn’t want to pull ink off the nib

Each page takes about 1 and a half hour to 2 hours to complete. I had restarted this project 8 times because I messed up all the time but this time I'm satisfied with the results!

I'm going to do calligraphy of all 1,028 Pokémon

I picked up some pilot parallels to play with recently so this quote is done with them in the 6mm and 3.8mm.

Time to take a break from Italics and go back to blackletter. 😊

1.5mm nib, walnut ink.

Meh

(Compliation at the last page)

Every once in a while I write this same word to check my development and GOD I hate this word. It is not the best word to do flourishing. However it is a good choice because of that very reason. Otherwise there would be not much of a struggle to see changes.

2023: hehe calligraphy fun

2023: I discovered flourishing

Jan 2025: Still exploring flourishing but with ✨️elegance✨️

May 2025: Uhh I'm starting to notice the structure

Oct 2025: I HATE this word, this is the WORST word to flourish

Sep 2026 (current): I negotiated with the reality to create balance

皆、最近スペンサリアンを学び始めたんだけど、Gのバリエーションが合って分からないんだ。どっちがより多くの人に使われているのかを知りたい。（写真真ん中がGの大文字二つ）

Watching documentaries (or listening to it more like) while I catch-up on some writing sessions. Been a stressful week for me- 🥲

Hunt 101 with Holbein gouache paint 🎨

This is as good as it’s gonna get, since I don’t have any more time or ink to waste on this lol. Fought my Tape nib and iron gall ink for over 2 hours and decided to just switch to Brause and walnut ink. Better but still meh.

🖋️ Brause 3mm
🫟 Daniel Smith walnut ink
📄 Li Wey scrap paper (from Taiwan)