Practicing Calligraphy Flourishes

Flourishes are decorative elements that are connected to a single letter or even a long word. Flourishes can be connected at the beginning, middle, or the end of a word. They add character to the letter and gives the letter more attention and detail. If you are a beginner with flourishes Taylor suggests tracing over the example ten times to get this down right, and then free handing the design. Tracing another design over ten times and free handing that design, that outcome will be just perfect (36). I am not so sure this process will work for me knowing that I do not pick up on things like these very easily.

As Taylor had shared his technique in this book, I had tried this process to see if this method would work for me. "As you can imagine, we were all horrified. It's easy, he said, and smiled. An eight year old child can do it! And he made us point at the board and follow the line many times with our finger, then draw a letter. Can you do one? I've shown you where to start and what order to do the strokes. Try the carefully x 10 (in mid air, if you wish), one freehand, trace x 10, freehand, trace x 10 method and see how close your last one is to mine when you again write it freehand. Be proud of yourself when they become easy" (Taylor 36). When I was practicing with this method my letter had came out about exact the same when i was tracing over the letter the first ten times. After I was done tracing the letter for ten times I had started to free hand the letter. My free handed letters are on the left of the picture and the traced ones are on the right of the picture. I am not sure how this method works for me looking at the picture something looks missing from my hand drawn piece. This method might work better for some people than others.

What is your opinion on this method?

 Taylor, Peter. Complete Calligraphy. Heatherton Victoria Austrailia, Hinkler
     Books, 2013. Print.