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The best paper you can buy for beginners in calligraphy is Onion Skin paper. It’s the best paper for learning or doing regular calligraphy without any doubt. And for premium choice you can go with Rhodia Paper. But it’s a little expensive. And onion skin paper was best budget paper you can go with.

Our Best Recommendation for Buying Calligraphy.

This is a simple ranking for those people, who don’t want to go deep in it. In this section we simply recommend the best paper for you to buy directly. without going deep into technical things. Click on text to go directly on the page.

And if you want to get technical reasons and information you can read the article below to get clear ideas and knowledge about calligraphy paper.

• Onion Skin Paper- it is our top recommendation because it’s cheap and best quality. You can use it for regular work.
• Rhodia Paper- it is the best paper for calligraphy, but little expensive. Therefore it is our second recommendation because many people only use it for paid work and where they require good quality. We suggest this for only special work and not for learning or regular work.

Can You Use a Calligraphy Pen on Regular Paper?

You should not use a calligraphy pen on regular pen. Because using regular or harsh paper will damage your calligraphy nib. And your calligraphy nib can be worn out quickly. So you have to buy more nibs, and it will cost you more. Therefore it’s best to use good quality smooth paper.

Therefore it is recommended to use a good quality smooth paper for calligraphy pen. Otherwise the nib will cost you more in the long term.

The harsh surface of paper will rub against the nib. And it will damage it. Therefore your calligraphy nib or any other such as fountain pen nib will get worn out quickly. Therefore you should not want to use bad quality or regular paper for calligraphy pen.

And not just that, using good quality paper will also provide you with an amazing quality end result. The nib glides through paper very smoothly, hence it increases the quality of your work. As well as providing your nib a good long life. Therefore investing in a good quality smooth paper is very necessary.

Don’t ever  shy to touch and check the smoothness of paper while buying it. It affects your work a lot. And also the nib’s life depends on it. Therefore check the smoothness and softness of paper while buying. And then only buy the paper.

Things to Keep in Mind While Buying Paper for Calligraphy- 

• You should look for the quality of paper.
• You should look for the smoothness  of the paper, and it is the most important part while selecting the paper.
• Keep in mind if you are buying paper in store. Don’t hesitate to rub your hand on paper and check it’s smoothness. 
• Touch every paper and check it’s smoothness before buying.
• You should never tend to buy tracing paper. They are a little transparent, therefore people consider and recommend them. But after using it, I can say they are very bad in quality. (We gave an example of it in this article.)
• You should want to check the brand of paper before buying.
• You should also want to consider the type of paper that fits your needs. (We shared all information regarding the types of papers in this article.)
• You should want to buy different types of paper for different purposes. (for example, for good copy, commercial work, or gifting someone artwork you should want to use good quality and premium paper. And for practicing and regular work you should want to consider a little lower quality and budget paper like onion skin paper. It will save your money as well as give you the same experience for writing.)
• Also keep in mind it is the most important buy for your calligraphy kit. People think the pen is a more important thing to consider, but it’s not. 
• Eventually your calligraphy kit will grow and your collection of pens will increase. But your paper remains the same for years.
• Also for good results paper plays the most important part then the pen. So it’s a crucial purchase for a calligraphy kit. Because the end result will defer a lot on it.
• It could save you a lot of money in the long run. Because if your paper was rough and if you were doing brush calligraphy the pen would get damaged. The brush  of the pen will get ruined properly. And eventually you have to throw the pen away and buy a new one. So in the long term it will waste your lot of money. Therefore paper should want to be smooth.

Types of paper in calligraphy

To give you a good and clear vision for buying paper and to make this buyer’s guide simple. We further divided the paper into 3 different types. First is tracing paper, second is budget paper, and third is premium paper.

Let’s see them one by one.

1. Tracing Papers.

The tracing paper is a type of paper used in calligraphy. Tracing paper is semi-transparent, therefore they are called tracing paper.

Because they get used to trace the writings and guidelines under it. This paper was placed on graphs, guidelines and writings to trace them. As an example below.

But you should never want to use tracing paper for calligraphy. The quality of tracing paper was very low. And it will ruin your calligraphy.

Lot of people recommend it for starting because it is cheap and semi-transparent but it’s a very bad idea to do so. Following is the example of comparison between other papers and tracing paper. And how bad quality it is compared to onion skin paper.

Insider tips: It is an insider tip, which you get from experience. Rather than using tracing paper, you should want to use onion skin paper. It is also transparent and more cheaper then it. But it has good quality compared to it. 

So onion skin paper has better quality and is cheaper than tracing paper. Also it is semi-transparent as well.

So it is recommended to stay  away from tracing paper. Because they  are pretty bad in quality. And can ruin your writing.

You can see in the image above it did not handle ink very well. The ink gets spread a little bit and looks gross. The strokes are not sharp as well. Therefore experts suggest using onion skin paper rather tracing paper.

2. Budget and Best Calligraphy Paper- Onion Skin Paper

So it brings us to our second type of paper, which is onion skin paper. It is the best paper for doing calligraphy. Many experts use this paper to do regular calligraphy work.

And it is very budget friendly also. You can check the price by clicking on this link- Onion Skin Paper.

As you can see in the image below it has almost the same quality as rhodia paper. Which is a premium and best quality paper. So you will get a pretty good experience with it.

Onion skin paper was very good at handling ink in it’s price range. The strokes are sharps and paper spread ink. It is also a semi-transparent paper. So you can use it for tracing like a tracing paper. And also good for scanning.

It is a perfect and great replacement for tracing paper. Because it comes with better quality as well as semi-transparent.

Also overall in buying it is the best and perfect choice to go with. Because of the quality and price of the paper.

Onion skin paper is the best and cheap paper for learning and doing regular calligraphy. So it is our top recommendation for buying calligraphy paper. You can check it out here from this link- Onion Skin Paper.

Best Offer to Buying Onion Skin Paper

You can buy 100 sheets of onion skin paper for $12.49 USD. but We did research and found the best deal for you.  

You can get 500 sheets of Onion Skin paper at $46 from this website- Onion Skin Paper 500 Sheets. And I want to really mention that it is not an affiliate link. But it is for your wellness. And also we went one more step further and found a coupon code and personally tested it. 

Coupon code- E5N3P2. With this coupon code you will get a $5 discount. So the total will be $41 USD for 500 sheets. And it is not at all an affiliate so we didn’t get any commission from it.

500 sheets will last about a year easily for you. To give a more clear idea, a year has 365 days. So it will easily last you for almost a year.

But if you did not want to spend that much at once or did not want to get calligraphy as primary, or you are just not comfortable with purchase you should be better to stick at normal amazon purchase.

3. Premium Paper for Calligraphy- Rhodia Paper

Rhodia paper is the highest quality paper out there you can buy. But it is the most expensive one also. Experts calligrapher use those papers only for paid works and where they require good quality.

There is no second opinion or doubt for this paper. It is the best paper you can use for calligraphy. But it is a little expensive therefore it is second on our recommendation list.

We recommend this for special work like paid works and gifting some art pieces. Not for regular use or learning. But in the end it completely depends on you, how much you are willing to spend on calligraphy.

The quality of this paper is best. It is very smooth and helps you to get good results. As well as it provides really good and sharp strokes, the pen will not get any harm from it.

• The dry time of this paper is fast.
• It does not have any ghosting or bleeding.
• Its feathering is very low, almost to none.
• Rhodia paper is acid-Free and pH-Neutral.
• Rhodia paper is PEFC-Certified.
• It has great dry time and still shows some of the fun properties of ink like shading.

It is overall great and the best paper to consider for premium quality. Because it is a little expensive.

Rhodia offers 80 sheets for $9 USD. So now you can make your own decision whether you are willing to spend that much now or not. Link for it is here- Rhodia Paper- 80 sheets. Rhodia Wirebound Notebook- $11.34 USD.

Conclusion

Your best choice for calligraphy paper is Onion skin paper. It is the best budget paper you can get for learning and practicing. The cost for it is 100 sheets for  USD $12.49. Or 500 sheets for $41 with our found coupon code. Check the onion skin paper section for detailed information.

And if you are ready to spend more you can get better quality paper from Rhodia. It is the best paper for calligraphy, but is a little expensive. Therefore we recommend it for special works and not for regular uses or learning. It will cost you $9 USD for 80 sheets. And $11.34 USD for a wired notebook.

So from this you have to decide how much you should want to spend on paper. And other details and links are provided in the article.

Also you can check Our Best Recommended Tools for other products recommendations. We mention all the best products and buyer’s guide for it. Like the best pen, etc.

Thank you.. it is complete guide for buying calligraphy paper.