A Wealt Of Free Online Calligraphy Books

[txomsy]

I just became aware of a wonderful resource for historical books on Calligraphy. It contains links to online (and in most cases downloadable) versions of historical copybooks arranged by Century, Country and Date. It is

 

www.pennavolans.com

 

 

Hundreds of books linked to, practically all the great masters, most of their main works are linked there,starting from the beginnings with Italian cursives, the Dutch masters (like Van de Velde) and French that influenced English writing to lead to English Round Hand, and its evolution and branching through the ages, including all US variants, but also its influences in German, French, Italian, Spanish... etc pointed-pen scripts.

 

BTW, I have no affiliation with the site. Just discovered it and got amazed in awe.

[Uncial]

Thank you

[MyPenAndI]

That's a cool find!
Thank you.

[inkstainedruth]

That looks like an awesome website! I've now bookmarked it. Thanks for posting the link!

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[txomsy]

You're welcome. Besides Eleanor Winters' Calligraphy in the Copperplate Style, I have relied to a very large extent on online texts to learn about calligraphy. If I had had access to this site twenty years ago, (well, if the resources had been available as well), I would have enjoyed this hobby a lot more.

 

Besides online and printed books, the other main resource I cherish are manuscripts: master's books are designed to teach an ideal hand. Manuscripts show how real people did actually use it and provide a lesson in humility (when one sees the average -as in non-professional calligrapher- proficiency of yonder) as encouragement (when one sees that real people didn't write as perfect as shown in the book plates either).

[GlenV]

That is really cool stuff there Thank You txomsy

[DrDebG]

Wow! This is really a great resource! I have bookmarked it for now but want to go back and study it in more detail.

[Stompie]

Very nice, Thank you for sharing!

[Astronymus]

Great find - bookmarked.

[neverforget]

amazing, thank you for sharing!

[Anne-Sophie]

Eleanor Winters' Calligraphy in the Copperplate Style, has many upper cases, even lower cases letters forms alternatives.

 

With its guidelines ready to be copied, comprehensive tutorials and many examples, it is the very best book on Copperplate calligraphy.

 

At the beginning of my calligraphic improvement journey, I consulted many of the internet references even bought a thin Dover publishing book about Copperplate, written in the beginning of the 20th century, it was definitely lacking in the letter form instruction, but it is very thin, thus it can be used with a couple of sheets of lined practice paper when traveling.

 

 

[Tasmith]

Late, but thanks for sharing!!!

[txomsy]

Jackson's Copperplate Calligraphy and Kaufman and Homelsky Calligraphy in the Copperplate Style would be two such nice Dover (thin) manuals.

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for the tip.  Dover Books tend to be relatively inexpensive, but are well bound.

Of course, I found out part of the reason they ARE inexpensive the hard way -- trying to apply for a job there when I got out of college....  Not only are they reprinting a lot of stuff where the copyright has expired, but the pay for doing layout and pasteup was bad (even compared to the crummy places I worked on summer jobs when I was in college) -- and by the time I'd paid for a commuter bus to Midtown Manhattan, and then take the subway to lower Manhattan (this was the early 1980s, before they moved out so someplace on Long Island) I would have had even LESS take home pay -- and that was ASSUMING that I didn't miss the last commuter bus and would have to take the subway over to the main train terminal and take commuter rail up to Croton-on-Harmon and then have someone drive down to Croton to pick me up at the train station -- Croton being ONLY as far north as commuter rail went back then.  

Just as easy (and a LOT shorter commute) to drive over to the next town and go work at the slimy place I'd worked a couple of summers in college (the Art Dept. pretty much referred to the place as "The Penny SLAVER" instead of "The Pennysaver" -- it was a weekly that came in the mail with different editions for different towns that had classified ads and some larger ads).  And the pay sucked and the hours sucked but there was a guy working there at the time who remembered me from the two summers I'd worked there during college -- so I was able to pick whether I wanted to work days or nights.  And I just took the job and kept looking for something better -- and ironically?  Found a better job by reading the ads in it (a company that did localized phone directories) after about a year.  Further away, but I'd drop my dad off at his job and then go on down county to there, and then pick him up on the way home.  And after my then boss decided to quit, and there was a catfight between two of my co-workers about who'd replace her, I decided to start looking again.  And found a place that did regional directories of contractors and places that sold/rented equipment and THAT job was across town from the phone directories place but paid WAY better (art jobs are incredibly poor paying in general).  And my boss THERE was quite grumpy when I quit because I was getting married and moving out of state....  

Of course, at this point, my job skills are COMPLETELY obsolete, because so many places switched over to doing layout and paste up on computers....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[AmericanMonk]

Also late, but also thanks for sharing!