DOMESTIKA COURSE – ENGLISH CALLIGRAPHY
I have decided to stay with the calligraphy theme after recently completing the Hebrew calligraphy course. The new course is on English calligraphy, often called Copperplate. With its flowing lines and flourishes, it is very elegant and beautiful. I have done a little in the past, but am enjoying some formal training, especially in layout and spacing.
My calligraphy inspiration
Our first task on the course, after introducing ourselves, was to share our inspiration, and why we wanted to take part in this course.
I have always loved beautiful handwriting. Many years ago I worked in a legal office and sometimes we had to go back to the 19th and early 20th century for original title deeds of properties, which were then hand-written on parchment. The copperplate script that the clerks used was superb and I was very inspired not just by the beauty of these legal documents, but by the skill, patience and determination of their unknown writers.
Later, I had access to some parish records of our local church before they had to be sent to the diocesan central office for safe keeping. These hand-written bound books dated back to the 17th century. Some of the names were familiar to us as we knew the descendents of those recorded – old farming families who had lived in the area for many generations. Again, I was moved by the skill of the writers – the local parish priests – keeping accurate records of the baptisms, marriages and deaths of the people in their local community. I took some photographs of several pages while I still had access to these precious books. It is interesting to see how the style of handwriting changed over the centuries. Note also the heading in blackletter script of the first example, another hand in which I am interested.
I also have the book “The Universal Penman” by George Bickham:
Here is an example of what the pages are like.
This entire book is also available to download from the Internet Archive. It’s a wealth of inspiration.
Starting on the practical side of the course
Guidelines
The teacher had provided some guidelines in pdf format for us to print out, in two sizes.
The narrow strip is called “X” and is where the main body of the letter falls. The wider strip above is “R” for “riser,” the part of a letter that rises above the main body, as in “b,”, “d,” etc. The wider strip below is “D” for “descender,” the part of the letter which falls below the main body, as in “g,” “p,” etc. We had exactly the same with the Hebrew calligraphy, although the risers and descenders were less pronounced and we didn’t need a specific line for them.
The diagonal lines are set at 55 degrees, the standard “slope” for English calligraphy.
My desk setup
Here is how I had my work surface set up for this project.
As you can see, I have my light panel switched on, with a piece of paper overlaying the guideline sheet. The following picture shows how well the lines show through the paper – in this case a sheet of 100 gsm printer paper for practice. You can do it without the light panel but everything shows up much better with this piece of kit – I find it a most useful addition to my studio.
Also on the desk you can see my iPad which I used to follow along with the video (takes up a lot less room than the laptop, even if the screen is a bit small). There’s a large bottle of black ink designed for brush and pen work (not fountain pens) – washable with water while wet, so great for clean-ups, but water-resistant when dry. This is a great advantage for mixed media work because you can paint over it without it running. I have a small glass egg cup that I use for an ink well, and I have put this in a plastic container, so if I knock it over, at least the flow of ink will be contained! The piece of natural cork, which I picked up from the ground in a cork tree plantation in Spain many years ago, is a great brush/pen rest! I have a lint-free cotton rag for cleaning the nib, and the pen itself, which has an angled nib holder.
I have a number of nibs, mostly cheap ones from Amazon. This one is supposed to be flexible but so far I haven’t had great success with “thicks and thins” with varying pressure. Once I’ve completed this course and had a bit more experience and know what I want, I may invest in some decent nibs.
Our first exercise
This was to practise the basic strokes of the letters. I did two sheets of these. The second one is definitely better than the first. I did experience problems with consistency after I had re-dipped the nib in the ink. Afterwards, I remembered what the Islamic art teacher had done when outlining the work with the fine brush – she made a few random strokes on a piece of scrap paper first, to remove the excess before going back to the project. I shall definitely try that next time.
These are the basic strokes and shapes needed to create all the lowercase letters.
In the next unit, we will be writing actual letters, and beginning to form words.
I am already enjoying this course immensely, and I think this form of lettering is going to be very useful, along with the blackletter script that I have been practising recently as well.
