Learning Copperplate...

[spiv]

i just purchased an oblique nib holder and some copperplare friendly nibs

but mainly i am posting here so i can find this thread easier..

 

sorry 'bout the interruption

[Ghost Plane]

Have you tried the "Watch topic" function? Check out the buttons above the thread

[spiv]

way to out the n00b

i mean, thanks!

[Ghost Plane]

Took me awhile to find the function as well. :embarrassed_smile:

[Mickey]

  On 5/12/2011 at 8:54 PM, caliken said:

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/A4Page30480.jpg

 

Sorry for being so tardy, but it's taken a month or so for me to put my finger on what exactly I found troubling in the right-hand form. I guess it comes under the category of personal aesthetic, but I see things quite the opposite from you, finding the form on the right (and its implications on the rest of the alphabet) more unsettling than the "belly sag" of the 18th century form. In isolation and in many combinations, the right-hand version does make an argument for itself; still, to my eye it appears contrived, unnatural, as if the weight of the left shade were allowed to defy gravity.

 

In the 18th century form, the shade on the left is echoed in the right-hand downstroke, which is also the right most stroke of "h, m, n. etc." Again to my eye, if one were to compromise the form of the other down-strokes to make them relate better to the "new" shade, the affected letters would seem ready to teeter to the right, as if one leg were less substantial or shorter than the other. Even the new "a" seems to teeter, but again, this is what I see.

 

Thanks you again for your many contributions, including the one I reference here, since it encouraged me to take a more critical look at this alphabet.

[smk]

  On 6/16/2011 at 2:03 PM, fuchsiaprincess said:

Hi everyone,

 

Haven't been practising much, but finally had the chance to pick my pen up tonight.

 

Here it is :

http://i1027.photobucket.com/albums/y331/fuchsiaprincess/IMG_0001.jpg

 

Soki - this is beautiful. As usual a lovely choice of ink too.

 

Salman

[smk]

  On 6/16/2011 at 2:31 PM, spiv said:

i just purchased an oblique nib holder and some copperplare friendly nibs

but mainly i am posting here so i can find this thread easier..

 

sorry 'bout the interruption

 

Welcome to the addiction. Be warned; the power of the flex nib is intoxicating!

 

I'll be looking forward to your posts.

 

Salman

[caliken]

Mickey :

 

This is fascinating!

 

We are assessing this from two different viewpoints; both entirely valid. This contradiction bothered me for many years and I've never seen it addressed in print.

 

The bottom-weighted letters of the copies printed from eighteenth century engravings were amended when they were later copied as handwriting with flexible pens and there seems to have been no specific reason for this change, other than personal taste. Certainly, it is just as easy to write either form of the letters a c d e g o and q.

 

I can understand your preference for both downstrokes (of the letter a for example), being equally weighted at the baseline, but Copperplate is a very symetrical lettering style and my preference for the second form is based on the top half of the letters balancing the bottom half. The left swelled stroke of the letter a is vertical symetrical, top to bottom, as is the right stroke, and so on where possible, throughout the alphabet. This applies to all the letters with left-sided swelled strokes i.e. a c d e g o and q.

 

Interestingly, in ALL the examples of eighteenth century engraved lettering I can find, your preference

is used, whereas ALL the later examples by flexible pen, use the second form. As far as I can tell, this applies to all the examples of engravers/engrossers script as archived and still practiced today by the members of IAMPETH.

As I said earlier, it's purely a matter of preference and there is room for both approaches, as long as they aren't mixed within the same piece of writing!

 

Thanks for questioning this point.

 

caliken

[Wickwack]

Hello friends! I'm on the "other side" of surgery - everything went well & I'm home recuperating. Thank you all for your kind words & support. I'll be back posting soon!

Rhea

[Ghost Plane]

Glad to hear it! :clap1: :clap1: :clap1: Hope you feel up to practising.

[Mickey]

Ken,

 

I wonder if the change relates to the general movement toward Palladian aesthetics in 18th century England. (It wouldn't surprise me a bit that it took the better part of a century for the classical influences to trickle down to scribe craft,) If so, it would place Bickham's "The Universal Penman" along side J.S. Bach's "Art of the Fugue" as a summarizing document, rather than indicator of the way forward.

[smk]

  On 6/16/2011 at 9:57 PM, Wickwack said:

Hello friends! I'm on the "other side" of surgery - everything went well & I'm home recuperating. Thank you all for your kind words & support. I'll be back posting soon!

Rhea

 

I am so glad to hear this. May your recovery be swift and painless. I am looking forward to having you back in full swing.

 

Salman

[fuchsiaprincess]

  On 6/16/2011 at 9:57 PM, Wickwack said:

Hello friends! I'm on the "other side" of surgery - everything went well & I'm home recuperating. Thank you all for your kind words & support. I'll be back posting soon!

Rhea

 

Congratulations and well done! Thanks for letting us know that you're fine.

 

Sending you lots of healing thoughts.

 

Warm regards,

Soki

[fuchsiaprincess]

  On 6/16/2011 at 6:54 PM, smk said:

  On 6/16/2011 at 2:03 PM, fuchsiaprincess said:

Hi everyone,

 

Haven't been practising much, but finally had the chance to pick my pen up tonight.

 

Here it is :

http://i1027.photobucket.com/albums/y331/fuchsiaprincess/IMG_0001.jpg

 

Soki - this is beautiful. As usual a lovely choice of ink too.

 

Salman

 

 

Thank you, Salman. You're too kind! It is amazing how much the scanner fails to pick up

 

I used a Brause rose nib, and a 1:1 mixture if Diamine Calligraphy ink Ruby:British Red.

 

Warm regards,

Soki

[caliken]

  On 6/16/2011 at 5:16 PM, Mickey said:

  On 5/12/2011 at 8:54 PM, caliken said:

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/A4Page30480.jpg

 

Sorry for being so tardy, but it's taken a month or so for me to put my finger on what exactly I found troubling in the right-hand form. I guess it comes under the category of personal aesthetic, but I see things quite the opposite from you, finding the form on the right (and its implications on the rest of the alphabet) more unsettling than the "belly sag" of the 18th century form. In isolation and in many combinations, the right-hand version does make an argument for itself; still, to my eye it appears contrived, unnatural, as if the weight of the left shade were allowed to defy gravity.

 

In the 18th century form, the shade on the left is echoed in the right-hand downstroke, which is also the right most stroke of "h, m, n. etc." Again to my eye, if one were to compromise the form of the other down-strokes to make them relate better to the "new" shade, the affected letters would seem ready to teeter to the right, as if one leg were less substantial or shorter than the other. Even the new "a" seems to teeter, but again, this is what I see.

 

Thanks you again for your many contributions, including the one I reference here, since it encouraged me to take a more critical look at this alphabet.

 

Sorry Mickey,

I was cleaning out some old Photobucket files and inadvertently deleted the file which you had posted here. So that the thread makes sense, I'm posting it here again.

 

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/Page30nu500.jpg

[fuchsiaprincess]

  On 6/16/2011 at 2:31 PM, spiv said:

i just purchased an oblique nib holder and some copperplare friendly nibs

but mainly i am posting here so i can find this thread easier..

 

sorry 'bout the interruption

 

No apologies required. Welcome to this thread! Looking forward to your posts

 

Regards,

Soki

[hlyuqi]

Oh I'm back .And my latest writings,some of them are written for others...:

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m532/hlyuqi1/201100402007.jpg

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m532/hlyuqi1/flourishing001.jpg

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m532/hlyuqi1/4583f06da9a717a6184cffe0.jpg

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m532/hlyuqi1/28849c7008f32a671d3089d0.jpg

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m532/hlyuqi1/54a593580538f7250008817c.jpg

[texaspenman]

Absolutely Brilliant Yuqi!!!!!

[smk]

hlyuqi these are just superb. You are back with a bang. Hope to see many more from your pen.

 

Salman

[hlyuqi]

  On 6/24/2011 at 5:15 PM, texaspenman said:

Absolutely Brilliant Yuqi!!!!!

Thank you.