Greek Letters

Ever since I first read the Percy Jackson series, I fell in love with the Greek style alphabet. But, when I was in elementary, I could never perfectly be able to copy the alphabet with a pen or pencil. So, when I saw the Greek alphabet in the book I’m reading, Calligraphy for Dummies, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to rewrite the alphabet, with a more experienced viewpoint. Bennett didn’t explain a lot about this alphabet, but that was fine by me, since I already had so much experience with it. I started off with the 1.5 pen nib, because I had previously used a thick nib, and really liked its results. I recently did the Roman alphabet, and Bennett said that the Greek alphabet is simply a variation of the Roman one (241). As always, I then found the perfect position, for both my chair and my hand. Bennett says that, “The pen angle is very flat (the pen points directly back towards you)” (241). This was a little awkward at first, but I eventually got used to the pen facing directly towards me. After I warmed up with some exercises, which the book didn’t provide, but I made for myself, I started by tracing the alphabet.

When I got to the middle of my practicing, I realized that the pen was bleeding through the paper and onto my book! Many of my friends had told me they encountered similar problems when they first started calligraphy. When I asked, they said the reason that this mistake is made is for two main reasons: the pen was left upside down in a pencil holder, or you shook it too much. Sure enough, before I started, I had shook it out of habit. Good thing I was doing a variation that didn’t make them stand out too much, or else the over-dispensing pen tip would have had detrimental effects on the writing. I debated on if I should wait until the following morning or do it now. In the end, I decided to wait. So, I let the pen sit flat on the desk overnight to make it even out, and then began again the next morning.

Then, the next morning, I started the alphabet again. This time, the pen wasn’t as “drippy”, which made a considerable amount of difference. I traced the whole alphabet to make sure it wasn’t too “drippy”, and it didn’t seep through the paper. Then, I started writing it on my own. The lines this time were much crisper, giving it more of a finish. I’m content that I waited until the next morning to do it. This shows how important patience is in calligraphy. Here is me working on my finished product:

In the end, I would like to say this was a truly tremendous journey, and I learned a lot more than just calligraphy in these last three months. I’m not planning on stopping calligraphy anytime soon, and will use it for posters and headings. I hope many of you will decide to do the same.

What was your favorite alphabet style in this journey? Why?

Bennett, Jim. Calligraphy for Dummies. For Dummies, 2007. Print.

Formal Uncial

Let me start off by saying this is by far my favorite alphabet variation out of all the ones I’ve done. First of all, it’s very easy to learn, and second of all, since this is my first time using a thick nib, I saw a considerable amount of difference when it came to the angle. Bennett says you use the pen angle of 20 degrees (140).

Now that we’ve talked about the pen angle, let’s move on the width. Bennett says, “The body of these letters is 5 pen widths in height, and the ascender and descender parts of these letters are very short” (140). If you have any questions about pen angle or pen widths, feel free to look at my first blog. After practicing out the position, pen angle, and pen width, I decided to move to another important aspect of the alphabet: the serifs.

Bennett says the serifs of the Formal Uncial look like the flared end of a horn, and even though there is a variety of different ways to make it, you should make it however you feel comfortable (141). I practiced all the different ways to make the serifs, and I ended up liking making the whole serif in one continuous stroke, because it tends to keep the lines crisp and clean.

I practiced the serifs until I got the hang of it, and then I thought I was ready to start writing the actual alphabet! The main thing I had to pay attention to as I was writing was to make sure my pen angle was as perfect as I could get it. This was because the nib was so thick, the wrong pen angle would stand out and would give the letters the grace and finish they need. Another thing that wasn’t hard to master, but just took a while to get used to were the very short ascenders and descenders. In the beginning, out of habit, I wrote using high descenders and ascenders, and I restarted a couple times. But, after that, I just had fun with it!

Since this alphabet only has all capital letters, I moved on to doing different variations. There were a lot (such as: narrow, wide, curly, crazy, and celtic). My favorite was the celtic variation. You use the same exact alphabet, but you rearrange the letters in odd ways (Bennett 148). This is the example I imitated. With this alphabet, you follow the basic guidelines, and just have fun!

As mentioned before, this is my first time using thick nibs. Both in this blog and online videos/pictures, do you prefer thick nibs or thin nibs? Why?

Bennett, Jim. Calligraphy for Dummies. For Dummies, 2007. Print.

The Foundational Hand

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.

Classical Roman Letters

The Roman alphabet is one of the simplest alphabets a calligrapher can write. But, their simple nature is deceptive. “Because of the simplicity of the letters, any flaw of mistake you make will stand out like a sore thumb. There are no flourishes or embellishments in this alphabet that will hide your goofs” (Bennett 107). So, as I started practicing writing the Roman alphabet, I started out by doing some practice, to understand what pen angle looks best and what position I should be in, which, as mentioned before, are two very important skills for a calligrapher. The Roman alphabet is very vital for two things: it is great to show classical elegance, and it shows the importance of proportion in calligraphy. For example, the Roman alphabet uses a mix of 3-4 different proportions, depending on the letter that you are writing. I, personally, will be using this style for writing out titles on my poster projects, as many other calligraphists do.

After I tried the many different proportions of the Roman alphabet, I made sure I memorized each proportion and what letters are written using that proportion. I practiced each proportion by using the boxes, and then on a separate sheet of paper.  As I practiced the proportion a little more, I moved on to other features I had to perfect: the pen angle. Most of the letters are written with a 20-degree angle, but some are written with a 45-degree angle. Bennett also says that before writing the Roman alphabet, you must warm up to ensure you won’t make simple mistakes, or worse, have a shaky hand (114). After I got all the basics down, I started the actual alphabet.

One of the final steps to complete before you can start writing in sentences is to add on the serifs. A lot of “formal” fonts have serifs, the little tails that go at the ends of the letters. By adding serifs, you achieve the final grace you need to make your writing look more complete. The serifs on the Roman letters are pretty straight forward; they’re just dashes you add to the beginnings and ends of each individual letter.

Since the Roman font is all about practicing proportion, I had to ensure that my spacing was correct before I started writing actual words. When you are spacing out your letters, you can’t have equal spacing between the letters, or else they will seem unevenly spaced. Instead, you must space them as if you were writing normally, with more space between some letter and less in between some, to make them appear to have equal spacing. Bennett says that a general rule of thumb when writing the Roman alphabet is that the straight sides need more space between the letters and the rounded sides need less space (118).

Do you agree with Bennett: are the simple things often the most deceptive? Why or why not?

Bennett, Jim. Calligraphy for Dummies. For Dummies, 2007. Print.

Beginning the Journey of Calligraphy

Many people, myself included, look at calligraphy as a complicated form of writing, something we will only see in our Pinterest boards and YouTube videos of organized notes and DIY's. But, the truth is, we are all just one step away from becoming beautiful artists who have mastered the art of calligraphy ourselves. For my journey, I will be using the "Complete Calligraphy" set by Hinkler, which includes: a book, a pencil, kneadable eraser, a calligraphy pen, 4 nibs, 2 marker, 6 cartridges of ink, 2 metallic calligraphy markers, and a T-square.

Since I've never done calligraphy before, I started with what is known as one of the simplest styles for calligraphy: Italic. The point of teaching the italic alphabet to beginners is so we will learn how to get the pen angle for calligraphy right, and understand how a calligraphy pen is different from a normal pen. Since we learn that the angle must stay consistent, Bennett tells us to hold the pen in one consistent position and move the paper, not your hand or your arm. This will ensure a uniform angle throughout your writing (56). I started off by perfecting my pen angle before I started my letters. So, I made sure that I didn't move my position, and as I got better and better at it, I achieved a uniform angle.  The book provided some practice that showed me how to get my angle right. Although it was hard at first, I kept readjusting the pen, paper, and what position I was in to make sure I got the angle down, before I moved on to doing more complicated things, such as the alphabet and words.

After I got my pen angle right, I moved on to the actual letters. This book told me to make sure my proportion according to the width of my pen was right, I had to, "...turn the pen sideways and make five little marks, one on top of each other like a stack of little bricks" (Bennett 58). So, I started off by tracing, and then writing with dashes so I would write in straight lines. I got through three lines of the alphabet before I stopped using lines, and used the five dashes throughout my whole alphabet, until I thought I got the proportion right.

Bennett said that I should not have curly serifs, which are the “tails” at the ends of letters (59). I refined my serifs, and practiced the alphabet a couple more times until I did not need dashes or lines at all, and this is what my final product looked like:

After reading this post, do you feel as though you can now tackle calligraphy? Why or why not?

Bennett, Jim. Calligraphy for Dummies. For Dummies, 2007. Print.