Learning Italic

[bobje]

Suggestions on this italic sample?

 

[ksm]

Bobje, I'll be brief and little picky.

 

1. Need more details, what paper is this, graph 5x5 mm?
2. What are you striving for, italic cursive handwriting or formal italic.
3. What is your model? Reynolds, Eager, Sheila Waters or someone's else, do you keep your model in front of you.

Two advices:

If you are serious about acquiring italics, consider going back to beginnings. Write this list of words as if they were continuous text:

i ill in inn intuit it l lilt limit limn lint lit lull 
m mi mil mill mini minim minimum mint mitt mu mull mum mutt muumuu 
n nil nit nu null nun nut 
t ti till tilt tin tint tit tumult tun tutu 
u um unit until

This words consists of downstrokes with no curves on the sides, concentrate on:

1. Keeping your down strokes parallel to each other.
2. Spacing (down strokes of adjacent letters should be the same distance as down strokes of "n, m & u".
3. 'n' is upside down 'u', counters should be same size.

But if you want to go quick and dirty, the biggest bang for a buck, you will get it from working on "a" shape letters (i.e. a, d, g & q), and also on "u". Look at almond shape of inside of this letter on samples, try to replicate it. Low counters of those letters should display symmetry with counters of "b, p" and "m, n". And diagonal part of "a, d, g, q & u" should display a thin line.

 

Comments on mine:

Edited May 24, 2016 by ksm

[bobje]

Chris, brief and picky are good. Thank you for reviewing this. To answer your questions, this is Staples ivory laser paper, 25 percent cotton, printed with a grid just under 5mm. The goal is cursive italic handwriting, following Fred Eager. No model in front of me. Appreciate the detailed critique, very helpful list of focus items.

 

On your sample, I enjoy the spacing and can see the work you've placed into the "a" shapes, parallel lines, and spacing. Your letter "t" is typically taller in the note than in the practice, and occasionally the "o", second hump of the "m" and the slope of the descender on the "g" are inconsistent. But I really enjoy the running quality of your note, particularly after you changed ink in the second paragraph. The writing literally became more fluid.

[ksm]

http://i68.tinypic.com/2eob5et.jpg

[smk]

ksm - whose instructions are you following for learning Italic? Both Tom Gourdie's and Fred Eager's instructions are for Italic Handwriting (as are Lloyd Reynold's).

 

Italic Calligraphy instructions contain more details on counter shapes, branching etc. As an example, your 'p' practice sheet above is more structured than is required for handwriting. However, for formal Italic the branching occurs a bit too early in some cases causing the transition to the down-stroke of the right side of the letter to be a bit too pointed. Also, the closing stroke on the bottom of the 'p' is supposed to have a slight curve to it - it is not drawn straight. These are finder points that are not readily noticeable but are important if you are learning formal Italic.

 

Sheila Waters' Foundations of Calligraphy is a valuable (and quite affordable) resource. Even if you don't practice any of the other hands in the book, just reading her explanation of the structure will provide useful insights. I cannot recommend that book highly enough.

 

- Salman

[ksm]

Salman, I've ordered Sheila Waters' book, but it will be few more weeks before it reaches me. I intend to study Italic and later Carolingian Minuscule.

 

For calligraphy practice, my mentor uses Sheila Waters' book, and when I'm in doubt she defaults to encouraging me to use Sheila Waters' model (hard to do right now, as the only copy of Sheila Waters' italic model I've found on the internet is pretty low res and without comments).

 

My final goal is a serviceable and visually attractive Cursive Italic Handwriting, but to achieve this goal I intend to study formal italic, to learn about nuances of this script before "dumbing it down" to everyday hand. Final effect I aspire for is a hand as elegant as this of dms525.

 

Construction of my minuscule "p", including push serif on descender is a deliberate act. Push serif forces me to lift my pen to baseline, without push serif I tend to trace back to baseline without lifting my pen. I did not know about curve on closing stroke of 'p', but as you said italic has its finer points.

 

Thank you for you insight. Your works on the Instagam are inspiring..

[Jade108]

Hello ksm,

Is the lined paper you used below available as a download someplace? I think those diagonal lines might be helpful, I just started with

Eager's The Italic Way to Beautiful Handwriting.

Thanks!

 

 

[ksm]

Actually I've made a page to produce such guidelines.

 

Modify parameters, and press "Draw" on the bottom of page. In PDF iframe drawing should appear, you ought to be able to save it and open with Acrobat Reader or similar desktop tool (I do not recommend printing directly from browser's PDF.js as those printouts usually are a little blury).

 

Use .05 and .1 mm width to print on paper you will be writing on or .3 - .5 width to print guide sheet to be placed below your paper.

Edited May 30, 2016 by ksm

[smk]

Salman, I've ordered Sheila Waters' book, but it will be few more weeks before it reaches me. I intend to study Italic and later Carolingian Minuscule.

 

For calligraphy practice, my mentor uses Sheila Waters' book, and when I'm in doubt she defaults to encouraging me to use Sheila Waters' model (hard to do right now, as the only copy of Sheila Waters' italic model I've found on the internet is pretty low res and without comments).

 

My final goal is a serviceable and visually attractive Cursive Italic Handwriting, but to achieve this goal I intend to study formal italic, to learn about nuances of this script before "dumbing it down" to everyday hand. Final effect I aspire for is a hand as elegant as this of dms525.

 

Construction of my minuscule "p", including push serif on descender is a deliberate act. Push serif forces me to lift my pen to baseline, without push serif I tend to trace back to baseline without lifting my pen. I did not know about curve on closing stroke of 'p', but as you said italic has its finer points.

 

Thank you for you insight. Your works on the Instagam are inspiring..

 

I think you already have a very attractive Italic handwriting. I am sure mastering Italic will not be a problem for you. With all of the nuances and subtleties, Italic is just a script made up of strokes after all. You have a good eye for detail and a good control of the nib and stroke angles. I think you will benefit greatly from Sheila Waters' book.

 

You already have a mentor so this might not interest you but another resource for a variety of hands is in the Calligraphy sub forum at WetCanvas.com (here). The lessons are by Geoff Ford (with one on Copperplate by me) but he can no longer provide regular feedback due to failing eyesight. I have been given the reigns for that responsibility now.

 

- Salman

[Jade108]

This is very cool! I love how specialized you've made it, thanks for sharing! Is there a commercially available paper you'd recommend?

 

Thanks so much!

 

Actually I've made a page to produce such guidelines.

 

Modify parameters, and press "Draw" on the bottom of page. In PDF iframe drawing should appear, you ought to be able to save it and open with Acrobat Reader or similar desktop tool (I do not recommend printing directly from browser's PDF.js as those printouts usually are a little blury).

 

Use .05 and .1 mm width to print on paper you will be writing on or .3 - .5 width to print guide sheet to be placed below your paper.

[tartuffo]

 

My final goal is a serviceable and visually attractive Cursive Italic Handwriting, .................... Final effect I aspire for is a hand as elegant as this of dms525.

 

 

From what I can see, you are already there .

[bobje]

Chris, Salman,

attached below is a sample from today. This weekend I started learning a two-stroke miniscule 'a' (and the corresponding 'a' letter group) from the Sheila Waters book. It seems to more reliably produce a flatter top and more almond-shaped counter, but after six months of Fred Eager's one-stroke 'a,' it's more challenging than I expected. Like Chris, my ultimate goal is fluent italic handwriting, not a calligraphic formal italic. I've been following most of the lessons from Eager's book, and using his exemplar. Tom Gourdie, I notice, also uses two strokes for the 'a' group. Thank you for pointing out WetCanvas, Salman. I joined today, and am also a member of Flourish.

 

[smk]

Bob - I think you will find the formal practice easier if you used a broader nib (about 2mm wide) with guidelines. It makes a lot of difference IMO.

 

Since your goal is to have a nice Italic handwriting, I feel I should share my opinion on the benefits of learning the formal hand. I think of Calligraphy as writing while concentrating on how to write while Handwriting is writing with the concentration on what is being written i.e. the content. In other words, when using your handwriting, the writing is done with muscle memory which means that the process of drawing letter shapes is more or less automatic. Studying formal Calligraphy will indeed give you a good understanding of the forms but I am not sure it will help improve the handwriting bit. Calligraphers don't always have good handwriting :-)

 

I hope this makes sense and is helpful.

 

Salman

[bobje]

Salman,

I have a 2.4mm Pilot Parallel and will give that a shot, with guidelines. Thank you for the discerning observation about

 

handwriting=focus on content

calligraphy=focus on form.

 

For me, what confirms this is that my education and occupation depends on careful and precise editing, style, punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc. But when I am concentrating on form and presentation, almost all of that goes out the window.

 

I guess the next question then is, how does one move a cerebral understanding of form from the brain to the muscles of the hand? Rote practice and drill? Writing virtually all of the time in the hand you want to adopt? I'm looking at completely legible and elegant text from Niccolo Niccoli in about 1400, and it appears to have been written quickly, as though he wasn't thinking about the shapes at all.

 

 

 

 

 

[Randal6393]

Certainly, practice helps. Ultimately, I find my hand looks best when I just sit down and use it.

 

Keep on trucking.

[smk]

Bob - you are not alone in that experience. Making simple spelling errors is very common among Calligraphers. Since one is concentrating on the strokes and going much slower than usual, it is very easy to draw the starting stroke of one letter and finish it like the next letter's :-)

 

The way we learn and use Calligraphy in modern times is very different than the times when the scripts were developed. The formal book hands were learned in order to earn a living or keep. Since most scribes writing professionally, they were not concerned with what they were writing - they were copying works written by others. In some cases, as clerks, they would write business documents but we don't use these as exemplars. Courts developed their own styles that could be written quickly and were designed to be difficult to read.

 

In cases where speed was important, e.g. books of prayers being produced for the general public, cursive versions of the hands started appearing e.g. the various Batarde hands. These had simplified forms and were not subject to close scrutiny for style. Speed and accuracy of text was more important so the style shifted a bit towards handwriting although not quite as loose as what the clerks would be using. The resulting scripts were closer to handwriting as we use it today but still much slower to write than we are used to.

 

Niccollo's script above must have been written quite rapidly but I suspect not quite as quickly as we write now a days. Also, he 'invented' the slanted variation and wrote a lot in this style. By comparison, we write only an hour or so a day in our chosen style so the development of muscle memory is that much slower. I believe if we wrote as much as the masters did in their day, and at their speed, we too can achieve their level of expertise in a few years.

 

I hope this rambling makes some sense :-)

 

- Salman

[Jade108]

http://i.imgur.com/UQCidax.jpg?1

[bobje]

Jade, Welcome to FPN, and I'm so glad that you're already contributing to this italic forum. We are starting with identical books. I have the Pilot Parallel 2.4mm, and it's great. Took a quick calligraphy seminar this weekend with Deborah Basel at the Triangle Pen Show, and she included a Sheaffer calligraphy pen with a 1.8 mm italic nib in the materials fee. It was surprisingly good, and only costs about $7.

[smk]

Jade - that is a very nicely written Italic, especially for only a few weeks practice. Your spacing and slant are very consistent.

 

The question about fountain pens for Calligraphy comes up a lot. Here is a post I wrote from a while ago on the subject: (original here)

 

 

- Sheaffer No Nonsense (old style): These are wet and smooth writing but not quite sharp enough for good results. The nibs can be sharpened but that takes a bit of practice.

 

- Parker Vector: The nibs on these are sharper than on the Sheaffer but the pen itself is quite flimsy. If you decide to get a set, get one of the bigger ones with the nib marked 'X' - this is bigger than the 'B' nib and quite good for practice.

 

- Manuscript Calligraphy set: These are cheap looking and cheap feeling but they produce great results. These pens come in sets with nibs ranging from 'F' to 4B. The best bang for the buck.

 

- Rotring Art Pens: These are excellent and can be had with nibs as wide as 2.3 mm. The flow is good and the nibs are sharp. They produce the best results of the lot in my opinion.

 

- Kaweco: I have used one only briefly, and while not very sharp, it was fun to play with. The ink flow on the one I used was a tad dry - which is good for practice as you are supposed to go slow :-)

 

- Lamy: These are very smooth and the flow is just right but they are not really tools for learning Calligraphy. The line variation is there but the smooth edges take something away from the thick/thin transitions.

 

Osmiroid calligraphy pens are also very good if you can find them.

 

- Salman

[Jade108]

Thanks for the welcome, Bobje! I found this forum after inheriting some nice pens from a family member, then realized, if I was going to write with fountain pens, then what I really wanted to do was learn italics. Funny how that went from no perceived need of writing instruments to nibs, paper and ink really fast. Bobje, are you using both Eagers and Waters books? My initial thoughts were to be able to have a fast italic hand, but after reading the discussion here, I'm wondering if it is indeed either content or form. Hopefully I will be able to do a bit of both.

 

Salman, thank you for your comments, I think the speed in which May whizzed by for me made me underestimate my time practicing. I looked up when I got my book, it was towards the beginning of May, so more accurately, I've been practicing just under a month.

 

I've looked up a number of the pens you've mentioned on ebay and there are a number to consider, I appreciate the suggestions, it's going to take me time to decide.