Crazy calligraphy!
Oct. 21st, 2009 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teleribSo my 'teach yourself calligraphy' saga continues. I think I'm at the point where I'm considering picking up real ink and pens, because I think it's going to affect how I do some of the letters. (I realized early that, although I could take certain shortcuts with my felt-tip pen and the letters would look fine, the required push/pull would probably not work with a metal nib.)
I've decided to learn three hands: square capitals, uncial and insular minuscule. That's pretty much the 8th cen. English version of MS Word's Heading 1, Heading 2 and Normal styles. You'd do your title in square caps, the first couple of lines in uncial, and then the bulk of the work in insular minuscule. Like the Word styles, that's not the only way to do it, but it looks like it was probably pretty common.
ZOMG square caps make me pull my hair! Many of the letters are just dead easy. Working my way through the first half of the alphabet, I felt like a pro. OK, "C" was a little tricky. But "B" was easy. So were D, E, F, H, I...
"M" is about the hardest thing I've tried to write yet, in all three hands. It's just awful! "N" is a little better, but then there's "W", which usually looks mutated when I'm done with it.
Yeesh.
On the other hand, the insular minuscule looked much harder than it was. I'm a long way from being good at it, but all the little ornaments and clubs on the letters weren't so hard to make. It's very Tolkienesque, too, which is neat.
I've decided to learn three hands: square capitals, uncial and insular minuscule. That's pretty much the 8th cen. English version of MS Word's Heading 1, Heading 2 and Normal styles. You'd do your title in square caps, the first couple of lines in uncial, and then the bulk of the work in insular minuscule. Like the Word styles, that's not the only way to do it, but it looks like it was probably pretty common.
ZOMG square caps make me pull my hair! Many of the letters are just dead easy. Working my way through the first half of the alphabet, I felt like a pro. OK, "C" was a little tricky. But "B" was easy. So were D, E, F, H, I...
"M" is about the hardest thing I've tried to write yet, in all three hands. It's just awful! "N" is a little better, but then there's "W", which usually looks mutated when I'm done with it.
Yeesh.
On the other hand, the insular minuscule looked much harder than it was. I'm a long way from being good at it, but all the little ornaments and clubs on the letters weren't so hard to make. It's very Tolkienesque, too, which is neat.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 03:23 pm (UTC)It looks like you are doing a good job of working out the kinks. Keep pushing through the letter you hate. Look at lots of different books to see ways they are drawn. at some point you will have the AhHA moment with each letter and someday, you wont hate what you write.