Making Flourishes with a French Curve

Swooping flourishes are an easy and eye-catching doodle accents you can add to a page. If you have had trouble mastering this skill, try using a French Curve ruler. A French Curve lets you make beautiful flourishes just by running a pen along the edges!

1. Sketch Out A Design
Sketch out your curves with a pencil on scratch paper first. Here is a three-curve design to get started:

Position the ruler as shown and draw the curve shown here as a red dotted line.

 Flip the ruler over and position the same curve at the base of your first curve. Draw the curve shown as red lines.

Flip and then rotate the ruler about one-quarter turn left and position the S-curve opening where your first two curves meet. Draw the S-curve shown here as dotted red lines.

If needed, make any changes by erasing and redrawing curves.

2. Draw on Transparency
Position your clear page over the traced designs and use a Slick Writer marker to redraw the curves. For best results, don’t trace over the sketch lines since that can produce broken and jagged lines. Instead, use the traced lines to reposition the ruler and draw all three of them again with the marker. 
 

3. Embellish
Add more swirling lines, flowers, stamped images, or other embellishments as desired.

The French Curve Ruler is included in the September 2007 Kit (Creating Clear Pages). It is also available separately here: Buy a French Curve Ruler