Whether this is your first time approaching blackletter calligraphy or you have already dedicated years to the craft, you’re in the right place. The materials herein were created to help aspiring calligraphy artists learn the ins and outs of an age-old (but certainly not forgotten) form of script.

If you follow these materials from beginning to end, you will walk away with a deep understanding of Bastarda’s history, how to distinguish it from other blackletter scripts, and most importantly, you’ll be armed with the skills needed to reproduce it effortlessly in beautiful compositions and hand-written excerpts.

This blackletter calligraphy manual and workbook covers the history of blackletter and provides insights on the best writing tools, in-depth written instruction and technique on how to approach individual strokes and letterforms for both the minuscule (lowercase) and majuscule (uppercase) alphabets, and a wealth of templated practice sheets to apply your learnings.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. An Overview of Bastarda Calligraphy
3. Blackletter Calligraphy Tools
4. Minuscule Stroke Exercises
5. Minuscule Alphabet Exercises
6. Majuscule Stroke Exercises
7. Majuscule Alphabet Exercises
8. Blank Practice Sheets

Mastering any style of calligraphy takes time and dedication — but that’s all it takes. Be patient in your studies and in time, this style of calligraphy will become second nature.

Note: This is one part of a four part book series where each book covers one of the four styles of blackletter (Textura, Rotunda, Bastarda, and Fraktur) comprehensively. Be sure to check the others out as well if you’re interested in learning other styles of blackletter calligraphy!