The foundational hand is also
known as the formal manuscript, or bookhand. Both the pen widths and the pen
angle are fairly easy. The pen width is 5 nibs wide, with the ascenders (such
as d) and the descenders (such as g) 3 pen nibs wide. Bennett says, “One reason
this alphabet is easy to learn, is you use only the 30-degree pen angle for
almost all strokes... (there’s only one exception, the lowercase z) (125). As
always, I started with some warmups provided by the book. I first wrote some
v’s, with one side thin and the other thick, to get an idea of the correct pen
angle. Then, I practiced some basic strokes that are the base of this alphabet.
After I warmed up, I started the lower-case letters. The lower-case
letters have different shapes such as round letters, letters that have the “n”
or “u” shape, the straight-line letters, and letters that have a “v” shape.
I’ll start off by talking about the round letters, which are: b, c, d, e, o, p and q. Bennett says once you get the round
letters right, you should be able to do all the letters easily. He also says
that you should always do the left side of the letter first, to ensure you will
have enough space between the letters (126-127).
Next are the letters that have the “n” or “u” shape. These
letters are: u, m, h, r, and a. What I mostly paid attention to was
making sure the letters were symmetrical, and making sure the letters have no
slant to them, which was hard since this whole time, I’ve been trying to make
my calligraphy slanted and fancy!
The next set of letters are the ones that have straight
lines, which are: I, j, k, l, and t. I noticed that some of the curves at
the end, or serifs, were almost microscopic. The main thing I paid attention to
in these were keeping the strokes very straight and consistent.
After this was the letters that have a “v” shape, which are:
v, w, and y. These ones were simple, so I quickly moved on to perfecting the
final set of letters: all of the ones that were left. Just in case you weren’t
keeping track :), they are: f, g, s, x, and
z. The most complicated was the g, which was made up of four different
strokes. But, there was no other letter other than the g that I thought was too hard.
After these, I started on the capital letters. These barely
took any time, because all I had to do was join my previous knowledge of
proportions and strokes from the Roman alphabet. Bennett says, “The capital letters for this alphabet are essentially a
relaxed, less formal version of the Roman capitals” (130). For additional
information about proportion, feel free to look at my previous blog about the Roman
alphabet.
Bennett has us do
this style, the foundation for calligraphy, after the italic and the Roman
alphabets. His reasoning is that one should learn the hard things first, so the
easy ones will seem like a breeze. Do you agree with his philosophy? Why or why
not?
Bennett,
Jim. Calligraphy for Dummies. For Dummies, 2007. Print.
