Learning Spencerian...

[caliken]

mvarela

 

Ken, what size is the original you wrote?

It's between the two sizes.

 

The line "handing you this as a specimen of" is about 7" long

 

Ken

[mvarela]

mvarela

 

It's between the two sizes.

 

The line "handing you this as a specimen of" is about 7" long

 

Ken

Thanks! And thanks for sharing... it's truly beautiful work!

[mvarela]

Some practice bits from today

 

http://i.imgur.com/9spA0Ol.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/FupjR4D.jpg

[caliken]

Some practice bits from today

 

http://i.imgur.com/9spA0Ol.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/FupjR4D.jpg

This is beautiful, flowing Spencerian - especially impressive at such a small size.

 

I hope that you don't mind a minor observation - The overall look of the page would benefit greatly from more carefully balanced inter-word spacing.

 

Ken

Edited August 26, 2013 by caliken

[mvarela]

This is beautiful, flowing Spencerian - especially impressive at such a small size.

 

I hope that you don't mind a minor observation - The overall look of the page would benefit greatly from more carefully balanced inter-word spacing.

 

Ken

Thanks Ken, that means a lot, especially coming from you! I agree with your comment, spacing is quite an issue for me at present. It usually bites me when I have a word starting with "t", and then the bar on the t clashes with the previous word.

[thang1thang2]

Thanks Ken, that means a lot, especially coming from you! I agree with your comment, spacing is quite an issue for me at present. It usually bites me when I have a word starting with "t", and then the bar on the t clashes with the previous word.

 

One thing that I find helps a lot is to take a page from the masters and not cross your t's until you finish the entire work of art (or just the line) you can combine t cross strokes if needed, or plan them much better at least. Doing a page of 't' drills every once in a while helps too, especially since it's t, d and upside down 'p' really.

[mvarela]

 

One thing that I find helps a lot is to take a page from the masters and not cross your t's until you finish the entire work of art (or just the line) you can combine t cross strokes if needed, or plan them much better at least. Doing a page of 't' drills every once in a while helps too, especially since it's t, d and upside down 'p' really.

 

That sounds quite reasonable, actually... I will give it a try.

[Mickey]

Some practice bits from today

 

http://i.imgur.com/9spA0Ol.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/FupjR4D.jpg

Sorry, I would have gotten to this sooner, but my protractor usually lives on my writing desk, not next to my computer.

 

Let me add my comments to Ken's, with which I wholeheartedly concur. You are writing at a 37 degree slant, which is rather low. The nominally correct angle for Spencerian is 52, though many great penman wrote at other slants, most notably, Madarasz, whose most recognizable work was written at 48. (Ken's homage to M. is at exactly that slant.) 37 degrees is not necessarily incorrect, but it is idiosyncratic - personal. My observation is that lower the slant angles requires greater intraword and interword spacing. Compare Madarasz's best known works (@48 degrees) with Lupfer's (@52 degrees). The Lupfer is more compact, i.e., the letter spacing is tighter.

 

I don't know if there is any hard and fast rule describing the relationship between slant and spacing*, but my impression is that too much slant with too little spacing produces a script which appears to tumble to the right, rather than a script which propels the eye from left to right. The result also loses its airiness. At some point, excessive slant destroys the coherence of the hand, regardless of the spacing. For lack of a better label, one might call it the domino effect. Your writing tumbles. My suggestion is that you adopt a more upright script, certainly no flatter than 45 degrees and slightly expand your intraword spacing (though that may happen automatically) and, per Ken, regularize the interword spacing.

 

A nit picking observation: the comma (also period, colon, semicolon, ellipsis...) generally is associated with the word it follows, not the space between that word and the next. In other words, treat it if it were the final character of the preceding word. I believe only the dash requires leading and trailing spaces.

 

* Remember, there are two angles in Spencerian, the main slant and the join angle. Classically, the difference is 22 degrees. At your present slant, that means a join angle of 15 degrees, which would produce excessively wide spacing. Quite sensibly, you haven't observed that convention, but the resulting compromise produces a somewhat chaotic look near the writing line, as the joins proceed at whatever angle is necessary to 'find' the next letter.

[mvarela]

Sorry, I would have gotten to this sooner, but my protractor usually lives on my writing desk, not next to my computer.

 

Let me add my comments to Ken's, with which I wholeheartedly concur. You are writing at a 37 degree slant, which is rather low. The nominally correct angle for Spencerian is 52, though many great penman wrote at other slants, most notably, Madarasz, whose most recognizable work was written at 48. (Ken's homage to M. is at exactly that slant.) 37 degrees is not necessarily incorrect, but it is idiosyncratic - personal. My observation is that lower the slant angles requires greater intraword and interword spacing. Compare Madarasz's best known works (@48 degrees) with Lupfer's (@52 degrees). The Lupfer is more compact, i.e., the letter spacing is tighter.

 

I don't know if there is any hard and fast rule describing the relationship between slant and spacing*, but my impression is that too much slant with too little spacing produces a script which appears to tumble to the right, rather than a script which propels the eye from left to right. The result also loses its airiness. At some point, excessive slant destroys the coherence of the hand, regardless of the spacing. For lack of a better label, one might call it the domino effect. Your writing tumbles. My suggestion is that you adopt a more upright script, certainly no flatter than 45 degrees and slightly expand your intraword spacing (though that may happen automatically) and, per Ken, regularize the interword spacing.

 

A nit picking observation: the comma (also period, colon, semicolon, ellipsis...) generally is associated with the word it follows, not the space between that word and the next. In other words, treat it if it were the final character of the preceding word. I believe only the dash requires leading and trailing spaces.

 

* Remember, there are two angles in Spencerian, the main slant and the join angle. Classically, the difference is 22 degrees. At your present slant, that means a join angle of 15 degrees, which would produce excessively wide spacing. Quite sensibly, you haven't observed that convention, but the resulting compromise produces a somewhat chaotic look near the writing line, as the joins proceed at whatever angle is necessary to 'find' the next letter.

 

Thanks Mickey for the very detailed comments and advice. I'll try using a different set of guidelines. Right now I'm using some I got from IAMPETH (http://www.iampeth.com/lessons/guidesheets/madarasz_guidesheet_NC.pdf), but I'm quite sure I have another set printed somewhere, so I'll give those a go. Thanks again for taking the time to share your knowledge!

[thang1thang2]

Ahhh. Those are the madarasz guidelines. That's why everything feels wrong.

 

Plus, the fact that there's way too many lines on the page is probably confusing you, you should just stick with very simple guidelines. Just a line on the page for x height, for the height of the capitals, the height of the descenders and some slant guidelines in there is all you need.

[Mickey]

 

Thanks Mickey for the very detailed comments and advice. I'll try using a different set of guidelines. Right now I'm using some I got from IAMPETH (http://www.iampeth.com/lessons/guidesheets/madarasz_guidesheet_NC.pdf), but I'm quite sure I have another set printed somewhere, so I'll give those a go. Thanks again for taking the time to share your knowledge!

You might be best off creating your own set. I checked the 3 IAMPETH guide sheets purporting to be Madarasz derived. They measure between 40 (the one you're using) and 42.5 degrees. I suspect something got screwed up in the aspect ratio of those pages when they were printed and scanned. The cursive guidelines from Achim are precisely as stated at 52 degree, but are a little busy for anything other than beginners.

 

Madarasz' own writing, (measurements taken with a digital protractor from both IAMPETH site examples and the second volume of Michael Sull's Spencerian collection) measure between 45.5 and 48 degrees (+/- .2). That's a substantial variance from the 3 guides, especially at those sort of slants. Spencerian looks pretty good, if somewhat pedestrian, at 55 degrees, safe and correct at 52, and a little sexy at 46-48, but much below that, it looks tipsy to me.

 

Addendum: I had pretty good luck with a set of guide lines I made consisting of nothing but the writing line, x-line, and the 30 degree join line. Using it really hammered 52 degrees into my head and hand. For example, the letter 'l' curves out around the 30 degree line, then comes back (after the turn) straight down 52 degree to just before the writing line. This really puts spine in the ascenders (descenders), removing any tendency for them to become balloony, symmetrical loops.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Mickey

[mvarela]

You might be best off creating your own set. I checked the 3 IAMPETH guide sheets purporting to be Madarasz derived. They measure between 40 (the one you're using) and 42.5 degrees. I suspect something got screwed up in the aspect ratio of those pages when they were printed and scanned. The cursive guidelines from Achim are precisely as stated at 52 degree, but are a little busy for anything other than beginners.

 

Madarasz' own writing, (measurements taken with a digital protractor from both IAMPETH site examples and the second volume of Michael Sull's Spencerian collection) measure between 45.5 and 48 degrees (+/- .2). That's a substantial variance from the 3 guides, especially at those sort of slants. Spencerian looks pretty good, if somewhat pedestrian, at 55 degrees, safe and correct at 52, and a little sexy at 46-48, but much below that, it looks tipsy to me.

 

Addendum: I had pretty good luck with a set of guide lines I made consisting of nothing but the writing line, x-line, and the 30 degree join line. Using it really hammered 52 degrees into my head and hand. For example, the letter 'l' curves out around the 30 degree line, then comes back (after the turn) straight down 52 degree to just before the writing line. This really puts spine in the ascenders (descenders), removing any tendency for them to become balloony, symmetrical loops.

 

I also measured the guidelines I was using, and it's indeed as you say; they're too low. I found the others I had printed, and they're at 45º. which resulted in this:

 

http://i.imgur.com/L5chPks.jpg

 

Interestingly, the combination of larger x-height and more upright slant slowed me down considerably.

Would you happen to have a digital version of your guidelines?

 

Cheers,

Martín

Edited August 27, 2013 by mvarela

[Mickey]

 

I also measured the guidelines I was using, and it's indeed as you say; they're too low. I found the others I had printed, and they're at 45º. which resulted in this:

 

http://i.imgur.com/L5chPks.jpg

 

Interestingly, the combination of larger x-height and more upright slant slowed me down considerably.

Would you happen to have a digital version of your guidelines?

 

Cheers,

Martín

Sorry can't find it, but you should be able to generate whatever you need with

 

http://www.allunderone.org/calligraphy2/calligraphy.php

 

Just remember the software specifies slant down from vertical rather up from horizontal.

[mvarela]

Sorry can't find it, but you should be able to generate whatever you need with

 

http://www.allunderone.org/calligraphy2/calligraphy.php

 

Just remember the software specifies slant down from vertical rather up from horizontal.

Thanks again!

[mvarela]

Sorry can't find it, but you should be able to generate whatever you need with

 

http://www.allunderone.org/calligraphy2/calligraphy.php

 

Just remember the software specifies slant down from vertical rather up from horizontal.

 

Funnily, when setting it at 52 degrees (to get an actual 48 degree slant), it still produces lower slant lines than it should. So I decided to make my own.

Here's the "Madarasz style" guidelines: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ak98apacywdlims/Spencerian_2mm_48%20degrees.pdf

For more traditional Spencerian slant: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3l6sb49bqqwhhi/Spencerian_2mm_52%20degrees.pdf

 

Let me know if you find this useful. I will clean up the hacky script I whipped up to draw this and make it available, in case someone might be interested.

[Mickey]

 

Funnily, when setting it at 52 degrees (to get an actual 48 degree slant), it still produces lower slant lines than it should. So I decided to make my own.

Here's the "Madarasz style" guidelines: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ak98apacywdlims/Spencerian_2mm_48%20degrees.pdf

For more traditional Spencerian slant: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3l6sb49bqqwhhi/Spencerian_2mm_52%20degrees.pdf

 

Let me know if you find this useful. I will clean up the hacky script I whipped up to draw this and make it available, in case someone might be interested.

I warned you that the application measures slant down from vertical rather than up from horizontal. You set the slant at 38 to get 52 (38 plus 52 equals 90) or 42 to get 48.

 

.

[mvarela]

I warned you that the application measures slant down from vertical rather than up from horizontal. You set the slant at 38 to get 52 (38 plus 52 equals 90) or 42 to get 48.

 

.

That's right... my bad (doing 100º right angles is rather poor math on my part ). Anyway, I now have the script to generate the guidelines, so it was not a pointless exercise

Edited August 30, 2013 by mvarela

[DemisM]

The thread inspired me to give it a try. First time, unfortunately didn't have a protractor handy, so I just winged my angles.

 

This is written on B5 paper English Rule with a Brause 66EF nib.

[Iso*]

DemisM, it is good that you are practicing in an orderly fashion. Remember to study as well.

 

I may note that initially, you should practice some movement exercises to familiarise your muscles in doing this work. In doing so, it helps to build a habit of uniformity and allow you to develop a lighter hand in doing hairlines and such.

 

I may also advise that in my search of nibs, the 66EF tended to be a bit not-so-fine, as I now use the Principal from D. Leonhardt. But then again, that nib is super-super fine. It took my quite a long time to lighten my hand enough consistently to perform with this nib. It will catch if not used correctly, but when you are skilled enough, it will perhaps be a really wonderful nib for you. I get my nibs from PIA, by the way.

[DemisM]

Thanks for the tips ISO.

I may note that initially, you should practice some movement exercises to familiarise your muscles in doing this work. In doing so, it helps to build a habit of uniformity and allow you to develop a lighter hand in doing hairlines and such.

 

Will definitely do.

 

...

I get my nibs from PIA, by the way.

Forgive me, haven't heard of PIA, can you elaborate?

 

Just did this.

Love writing and calligraphy is now a form of meditation for me.