Learning by writing is the way to go with Japanese language. One remark though - hiragana and katakana are not alphabets, but syllabaries.
Here is a link to kana, but I wrote there few words about where it came from, perhaps you will find it usefull:
kana
"Nameless if you want to learn about calligraphy you can start with visiting my site. Link is in my signature. We are constantly adding new content to it.