Beginner’s Guide to Flourish Families in Calligraphy

When I started learning calligraphy flourishing three years ago, I was simply copying what I saw on Instagram.

So when it came to flourishing a long quote, I had to scroll through my bookmarks. I tried to fit the appropriate flourishes into the appropriate spots — mostly guesswork really.

Obviously not a great approach. Here’s the outcome — messy, jumbled and haphazard.

Over time, I started seeing flourishes with a more analytical eye. The various shapes and directions of flourishes jumped out at me. That’s when I started grouping flourishes into what I call flourish families.

What are flourish families?

Flourish families are groups of flourishes that look similar to one another.

Each family can consist of flourishes for different spots — ascenders, descenders, entrance and exit strokes, and crossbars. But they all share a common structure, similar to family members sharing a family name.

Learning flourishes by families makes it easier for beginners to learn, practise and experiment. But I’ll explain more later in this blogpost.

For now, let’s look at examples of flourish families so you have a better visual picture.

Examples of flourish families

Simple ovals, pretzels and doughnuts are the three flourish families that I use the most frequently.

Remember, the basic principles of flourishing still apply:

• Create ovals, not circles;
• Do not cross two shaded strokes; and
• Cross lines at right angles.

Simple Oval Flourishes

• Common structure: Oval created by extending strokes of letters
• Tip: Oval can be hidden / embedded

Pretzel Flourishes

• Common structure: Horizontal oval overlapping with a slant oval
• Tip: One oval intersects the other right in the middle

Doughnut Flourishes

• Common structure: Smaller oval within larger oval
• Tip: Parallel spacing around smaller oval

By the way, most of the flourish variations shown above are included in my free Basics of Flourishing PDF guide. Grab a copy here if you want traceable worksheets for your practice!

Benefits of using flourish families to learn and practise

Now that you have a better idea of what flourish families are, let’s look at why we want to group flourishes together.

Grouping flourishes by families makes it easier for beginners to learn, practise and experiment.

• Learning: Without flourish families, you’re probably trying to remember individual flourishes. But by grouping them, you drastically reduce the number of things to remember. For example, just remember the three flourish families explained above. Apply each family’s common structure to the five flourishing spots (ascenders, descenders, entrance and exit strokes, and crossbars). 3 x 5 = 15. Now you have 15 individual flourish variations on hand.

• Practising: Each flourish family has its own rules and tips e.g. parallel spacing in doughnut flourishes. By keeping these in mind, you can practise efficiently to improve consistency. For example, practising a doughnut ascender loop flourish builds muscle memory on how to maintain parallel spacing, which can be applied to other flourishes in the doughnut family.

• Experimenting: When you’re more comfortable with flourishing, flourish families provides a good framework for you to experiment and come up with your own variations. For example, by using a pretzel ascender loop flourish as a base, extending the stroke in different ways creates more variations.

And if you combine two flourish families? Even more variations.

Analysing flourishes in families has drastically improved my confidence in flourishing. I don’t need to remember or bookmark specific flourishes. I don’t feel stressed when I need to tweak flourishes to fit the space, or when flourishing difficult words with multiple ascenders and descenders like “fluffy”. I’m able to have fun, be curious and experiment with new flourishes on the fly.

Flourish families in action: Words and quotes

But of course, what’s most important is putting theory into action.

Let’s see how using flourish families can help in flourishing words and quotes.

• Flourishing words: When flourishing words like names, it’s helpful to think about balancing the size of flourishes, weight of flourishes and white space. We can do this quite easily just by using the same flourish family on opposite spaces — above and below a word, or on the left and right side of a word. Because flourish families have common structures, you don’t have to think too much to balancing the weight of flourishes or white space.

• Flourishing quotes: Remember the first photo in this blogpost, where I showed a flourished quote from my beginner days? It’s messy and jumbled because there were too many types of flourishes in one quote (and I also wasn’t following the basic rules of flourishing). For beginners, start with only one or two flourish families in a piece. This is a simple hack for the piece to look visually cohesive, and you don’t have to rack your brains for new variations to use.

My friend Su does this very well. She frequently uses only simple ovals in her flourished work, which looks visually cohesive and has become her personal style!

How to start practising using flourish families

The three families shown in this blogpost — simple ovals, pretzels and doughnuts — are a great place to start. Following the common structures and tips for these families, come up with your own flourish variations. Try not to refer or copy! Start simple and build your way up to more complex flourishes when you’re ready.

If you come across a new flourish on Instagram (or anywhere else), take a moment to analyse it. Does it fall into one of these three flourish families? How is it different from the variations you’ve come up with? If it’s a new flourish family, what’s the main shape and structure you see? Use that to come up with even more variations.

Of course, not every flourish fits nicely into a family — that would be quite boring.

But learning to see shapes and structures in flourishes helps you develop a more analytical eye. With time and practice, you’ll find it easier to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and why.

I hope this blogpost on flourish families has made calligraphy flourishing less abstract and confusing. If you learnt something new in this blogpost, please share it with a calligrafriend who may also be struggling to learn flourishing!