“Thursday is the bridge between the hard work of the week and the sweet reward of the weekend.” —Teamland
Thursday: a day to be thankful, tireless and tenacious. It’s the perfect day for some calligraphy practice (do we say that every day? we’ll never confess).
Excited to learn how to write Thursday in calligraphy?! Thursday might be the most challenging day of the week to write in calligraphy, thanks to the tricky t-h combination.
But don’t worry: we have a detailed tutorial that will teach you 8 different styles (with free resources to help!).
Before we dive into the different scripts and styles, let’s take a moment to analyze the letters in the word Thursday.
Being familiar with the basic strokes of calligraphy (tutorial here if this is new!) makes it a lot easier to understand how the shapes in different calligraphy styles differ from each other.
The word Thursday is constructed from the following basic strokes:
Rule of thumb: Always make sure that your downstrokes are thick and your upstrokes are thin. If you’re new to calligraphy, this will take some practice. You’ll find that curves in particular are hard to get even, but repetition makes all the difference.
Learning the basic strokes is the first step for most budding calligraphers. In fact, even though we’ve taught calligraphy for more than a decade, we still practice the basics from time to time! You can use our free practice worksheet:
We’re going to teach you 8 Thursday writing samples, with an emphasis on each unique style and variations for the tricky t-h combination. Grab some paper and let’s go!
Get a live demonstration in our video tutorial:
No calligraphy pen is needed for this first style: any normal (monoline) pen, such as a ballpoint or fountain pen, can write these letters. With faux calligraphy, you write your word in cursive writing first and then add the shaded areas after you’re done.
Practice tip: We recommend writing the letter h first, before capital T. This way, you know exactly where the crossbar needs to end. Learn more in our detailed beginner’s guide to faux calligraphy:
This example of modern calligraphy really highlights the basic strokes in the word Thursday. See how calligraphy letters are “constructed” rather than written?
Pay special attention to the T-h combination at the beginning of the word as the t-crossbar can run into the loop of the h. Although you can simply write the letters further apart, we recommend making the ascending loop of the h a little shorter to make this combination work.
Maintaining and tweaking letter spacing is a tricky business and adding too much space quickly looks off. Learn how to write the alphabet stroke by stroke with our tutorial:
In this example, the ‘h’ a more pronounced entry stroke to fill in some of that empty space between T and h. Calligraphy is all about attention to details and this is a great example of how tweaking small things can give a better end result.
Sometimes, calligraphy is like a puzzle and you have to change tiny letter elements to make things fit! Want to learn more about developing your own letters? Then try our free Letter Logic worksheet here:
Let’s choose a completely different medium for this example: the iPad (using our free Procreate calligraphy brush)! Instead of filling page after page with practice words, using the unlimited space on the iPad is perfect for practicing new calligraphy styles.
To create that nice bouncy effect, experiment with the following:
Bounce lettering is a fun and playful style of lettering art that appears deceptively random at first. However, you’ll improve quickly after a little practice and we’ve created a free bounce lettering guide to help you learn:
The classic Copperplate script may be the most elegant of all traditional calligraphy styles. Although you can do this style of calligraphy with a brush pen or even on the iPad, we chose to embrace tradition and break out the pointed pen and ink for this one.
With traditional styles like Copperplate, it’s important to write the correct letterforms as they determine the signature look of this style. There is still room for variation, though, as you can see here with this alternate Th:
Pay attention to the following details when making the capital T:
Take a deep dive into the individual letters of the Copperplate alphabet if you want to learn more:
Although these decorative lines feel like they’re improvised, we planned them out with thought and care. It is important that you create a sense of symmetry and balance when you choose flourishes. Give equal weight to the left and right parts of the word as well as the top and bottom ones.
The most obvious places are:
While you can add shade to your flourishes, keep in mind that the focus should be on the letters in the word. Flourishes can be dramatic but always need to be of lighter weight than the letters themselves. Learn more tricks of the trade in our flourishing guide:
Finally, we have the precursor to modern cursive writing: the Spencerian script. Like Copperplate calligraphy, this is a traditional lettering style and it’s all about proper form. Unlike the fully shaded thick downstroke found in Copperplate, Spencerian style means the T is only shaded in the bottom half.
While it sounds like a minute detail, this means that you’re shading as you’re curving which makes it a very tricky letter. In order to do the now infamous Th-combination, it’s best to make the h a little shorter. This way the stemloop doesn’t interfere with the T-crossbar. Learn more in our Spencerian guide:
For this style, we’re using letters that almost look like block letters but don’t be fooled — there’s still contrast! Each letter has a very clear contrast between thick and thin lines which makes them the perfect choice for beginners.
Although the rule in calligraphy of thick downstrokes and thin upstrokes is pretty ironclad, we will need to make some subtle changes to make these letters look good, such as:
The simple-looking capital letters are great for adults but also for kids! We teach it in our free Calligraphy for Kids course:
Keep your practice going by joining Calligraphy Skool. Get instant access to worksheets, courses and discussions when you join, and get new printables each month. Seasonal workbooks mean that you’ll never hit a wall with practicing!
We’re so excited to embrace writing days together with you! Learn the rest of the week here:
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