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In this tutorial, I’m walking you through the 3 biggest mistakes people make when switching from small brush pens to a big brush pen.

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So you’re ready to move up from a small pen to a big pen because you’re itching to try some fun, new techniques? Let’s talk about what mistakes to avoid to make the switch that much smoother, literally!

First Things First…

The links below may be affiliate links where appropriate. This means that your purchase through these links may result in a few cents in payment to me, to support creating further resources like this one! That being said, I will never suggest supplies that I do not personally use and fully recommend.

Tools Mentioned

• Rhodia Paper
• Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen
• Tombow Dual Brush Pen

Prefer watching over reading? Feel free to skip right to the video and see these in real-time! ??

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Mistake #1: You’re writing too small!

With a small pen, you’re probably writing…small. When switching to a bigger pen, many beginners try and keep to the same size, which is IMPOSSIBLE and looks super messy.

Generally, you’ll see calligraphy workbooks (like mine, shameless plug ?) that are scaled for EITHER small pens or big pens. That’s because you really should be writing in different sizes depending on which pen you’re using. It’ll make a HUGE difference.

Mistake #2: Changing the pen angle

Your pen should always be at roughly a 45-degree angle – hand perpendicular to the page.

When you switch to a big pen, I see students shifting their angle to a more vertical position. When you do this, it’s really tough to get the right thickness of downstroke.

So make sure you keep your hand positioned properly at a 45-degree, perpendicular angle.

Mistake #3: Making your upstrokes too thin

This is hands down the biggest mistake I see!

With a small pen, you can make suuuuuper fine hairlines (upper left, below), and that’s what you get used to doing. However, when you switch to a bigger pen, your upstrokes will naturally always get a bit thicker as well. If you try to keep them too thin, they will come out looking too choppy (upper right, below).

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And that’s a wrap!

So, were you making any of those 3 mistakes?! Be sure to let me know in the comments! If you’d like more practice, be sure to check out my workbooks!