Cadel flourishing and lettering.

[Lozzic]

Is anyone here particularly proficient at drawing Cadels and Cadel flourishes? I am trying to teach myself the various patterns that can be archived using a book called "Calligraphic Flourishing: A New Approach to an Ancient Art" and it is proving rather difficult. I was wondering how long it took you to learn them and get to the point where you were not continuously boxing your patterns in or finding you could go nowhere with the pen . What sort of practice would you recommend for them? Also should one attempt to learn and draw them fluidly and continuously without pen lifts or should you learn by drawing some lines and filling others in after?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

I will post my progress in this topic while learning how to do Cadels.

Edited March 23, 2008 by Lozzic

[jbb]

It sounds like you're aiming at something a lot more advanced than what I do. I make these kinds of flourishes.

[HDoug]

"Cadel." Wow, I learned a new word today. And jbb, those are gorgeous! I'm not sufficiently confident in my masculinity (or penmanship) to even attempt a cadel flourish, but I found this very large excerpt of Bill Hildebrandt's Calligraphic Flourishing, A New Approach to an Ancient Art on GoogleBooks. The text itself seems penned, but that may be a font. Here's the book's entry at Amazon for those who might want it as a more permanent guide and reference. (I like it when authors allow gobs of their book to be posted at GoogleBooks and think we should help fund their labors if we can.)

 

Thanks to both of you for posting!

 

Doug

 

P.S. Whoops, Lozzic, I just realized that this is the very book you are referring to. My post is not directly responsive to yours, but I'll leave it for others to look at, if you don't mind..?

Edited March 23, 2008 by HDoug

[Titivillus]

  Lozzic said:

Is anyone here particularly proficient at drawing Cadels and Cadel flourishes? I am trying to teach myself the various patterns that can be archived using a book called "Calligraphic Flourishing: A New Approach to an Ancient Art" and it is proving rather difficult. I was wondering how long it took you to learn them and get to the point where you were not continuously boxing your patterns in or finding you could go nowhere with the pen . What sort of practice would you recommend for them? Also should one attempt to learn and draw them fluidly and continuously without pen lifts or should you learn by drawing some lines and filling others in after?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

First I would suggest starting very very simply and then just keep at it until you can move out from the descender and it's natural. All of the permutations that I messed with were steps up that I used a pencil to sketch out first to make sure that I knew about how much space I would need and which direction I needed to start then move towards.

 

Kurt

 

[Lozzic]

Hello, this is going to be a short post I don't have long. I will get some examples up of my labour and what I intend soon, maybe I could keep a running topic here of my progress. jbb those are very awesome flourishes, they are similar to what I mean, similar principle except they are more in the tradition of pointed pen script.

Hdoug, by all means leave that post with the link I am sure many people would appreciate it, though remember it is not the full version only a preview. I got that book through the post about 2 days ago from Amazon, it is brilliant for anyone considering taking up the art of flourishing and I would definitely recommend buying it for reading if you want the whole thing.

(bleep), thank you for the advice. I am assuming you are referring to planning whole Cadel letters with pencil or flourishes as well? It is a pretty daunting task to do lol but I am determined, I will take my time as you suggest. I am starting with flourishes and then I am going to move on to letters based on Cadel patterns. The script I am intending all this to accompany is a Fraktur script.

 

Thanks for the info and posts, keep it coming.

Edited March 24, 2008 by Lozzic

[Rabbit]

Not trying to get off topic here, but jbb--how did you get your line variation on an upward-left/downward-right line? Did you have to turn your page sideways to do that? My line variation is always on an upward-right (or technically download left) line, but I haven't tried doing this type of flourishing with the page turned sideways... Should flourishes always be done with the page turned sideways?

 

Lozzic, I look forward to seeing images!

 

--Stephen

Edited March 24, 2008 by Rabbit

[tipstricks]

Wow, that book intrigue me. I want it, thank you all for posting.

I've posted some time ago few letters in cadel style

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=37752,

written with italic nib, but never tried patterns in this way.

[Lozzic]

  tipstricks said:

Wow, that book intrigue me. I want it, thank you all for posting.

I've posted some time ago few letters in cadel style

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=37752,

written with italic nib, but never tried patterns in this way.

 

Thanks for the link tipstricks, those are awesome.

 

 

Here are a few doodles I did this morning, some are not very good others I am happy with. See what you think:

 

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/7942/img047lw2.jpg

 

I have not attempted Cadel lettering yet, only flourishes.

[jbb]

  Rabbit said:

...jbb--how did you get your line variation on an upward-left/downward-right line? Did you have to turn your page sideways to do that?...

I don't turn my page sideways. I just press down on the nib for the thicker line and then lighten up for the lighter lines.

 

 

Lozzic, Your flourishes are cool!!! Thanks for posting.

 

[tipstricks]

There are a lot of well made flourishing in your example, Lozzic! Specially the firsts "hg", and "p" on second row. I also find perfect your "fraktur" word. Many, many compliments!

 

[Lozzic]

  tipstricks said:

There are a lot of well made flourishing in your example, Lozzic! Specially the firsts "hg", and "p" on second row. I also find perfect your "fraktur" word. Many, many compliments!

 

Thank you for your compliment, yes I like that p on the second row also.

 

 

Here is something I just cooked up an hour ago, it's OK, was meant to be an L but I think it is a little unbalanced. Sorry about the scan through of the opposite side of the page. What do you think?

 

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/4247/img048na9.jpg

 

[jbb]

That's so cool! These are going to be lots of fun. You're inspiring me.

[Lozzic]

  jbb said:

That's so cool! These are going to be lots of fun. You're inspiring me.

 

I would be very interested to see what you can come up with, Cadels are unique so there is a lot of room for artistic licence.

 

 

I have been doing some research on Cadels and this is what I have come up with. The images below all show the majuscule letter 'B'. I am not sure of all their time periods, I know that image 1 is from around the late 15th century and that image 6 is from 1693, as for the others I can only guess time period; an educated guess would be that 2&3 are quite a bit earlier than 4&5.

 

Image 1 was done with a broad pen, it seems that the earliest Cadels are rather simple and often eccentric.

Image 2 was also done with a broad pen and is what is known as a 'true' Cadel. A true Cadel is one which you can trace the line around and it never stops, in other words the letter could have theoretically been done without ever lifting the pen, though that is not likely at all. 'True' Cadels are the hardest to do convincingly.

image 3 is broad pen with pointed pen illustration, I am not sure whether it is a 'true' Cadel, it may be a 'false' Cadel pretending to be a true Cadel.

Image 4 appears to be broad pen with pointed pen flourishing, it is all joined together but I do not think it is what you would call a 'true' Cadel as such. It is theoretically possible that it was done exclusively with a pointed pen but I don't think so.

Image 5 is similar to image 4, I would guess it is broad and pointed pen also.

Image 6 could theoretically be exclusively pointed pen, the flourishing obviously is; the actual letter (which is a Fraktur 'B') is probably broad pen but as I said you cannot be 100% certain. The main body of it and most of the flourishing seems to be a 'true' Cadel.

 

I may be wrong but it seems to me that any elaborately flourished capital, that is not based on a 'Copperplate' letter-form, rather it is based on broad pen script, is a Cadel. The term 'Cadel' however was originally placed on exclusively broad pen letters and flourishing like images 1,2&3. However it can now, as I said, be applied to letters such as 4,5&6. From what I can gather, the letter-forms on which Cadels are made are usually Gothic scripts e.g. Fraktur, I do not see why they should be restricted to that though; often they seem to be made-up letter forms too.

 

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1043/letterbpf2.jpg

[jbb]

Oh my, what great images! Thank you for explaining what a Cadel is too as I wasn't quite sure. Actually, I'm still not 100% sure I understand but I think I'm grasping the jist of it.

[Lozzic]

  jbb said:

Actually, I'm still not 100% sure I understand but I think I'm grasping the jist of it.

 

What don't you quite understand?

 

[jbb]

Is a Cadel a capitol letter with flourishes drawn without the pen leaving the paper?

[Lozzic]

  jbb said:

Is a Cadel a capitol letter with flourishes drawn without the pen leaving the paper?

 

 

As you can see there are various different styles of Cadel, those pictures on the previous page are probably only a tiny glimpse of what was produced. To answer your question, yes and no. Apparently, so I have read, one of the past Calligraphers called Flamel who was also one of the first to do Cadels insisted that the lines that make up a Cadel should follow on from each other so that the Cadel could have been done without lifting the pen. That does not mean you cannot lift the pen while drawing it however, what that means it that the Cadel theoretically could have been done without pen lifts, in other words there should be no gaps or strokes that are separated, even if they overlap. This sort of Cadel is termed a 'true' Cadel.

 

The other type of Cadel is a 'false' Cadel, this can look exactly the same as a 'True' Cadel but if you look closely different patterns or strokes will be separate and the lines that make the letter in its entirety cannot be followed without having to jump on to other lines.

 

Although they are called 'true' and 'false' Cadels they are just as worthy as each other, there is nothing superior, as such, about a true Cadel apart from the fact they may be more difficult to draw. I cannot really explain this further maybe an illustration will help:

 

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/7581/cadelsequenceqe7.jpg

 

Image 1 is a 'false' Cadel, there is no way you could trace that with a pen and not lift it, the red rectangle is separate shape from the black zig-zag.

 

The sequence of images labelled 2 is the creation of a 'true' Cadel, it is a sequence of strokes that can theoretically be done without lifting the pen. It is important to note that that does not mean you have to draw it without lifting the pen, ofcourse you could draw that as two lines and 4 cubes, in fact that is apparently how many scribes used to do that in real life.

 

*also Cadels don't have to be 'square' in appearance, as you can see later ones are flourished like copperplate.

Edited March 26, 2008 by Lozzic

[jbb]

I'm so jazzed about learning to make cadels. Thank you Lozzic for bringing up this heretofore unknown concept. I have, by nature, a rather inconsistent handwriting partnered with an illogical and random way of thinking.... but no matter, I'm sure there's room in the world for all sorts of cadels. Here is today's attempt.

 

P.S. - I think my "D" is awful. I'll have to work on that since all letters start "Dear..."

[Lozzic]

  jbb said:

I'm so jazzed about learning to make cadels. Thank you Lozzic for bringing up this heretofore unknown concept. I have, by nature, a rather inconsistent handwriting partnered with an illogical and random way of thinking.... but no matter, I'm sure there's room in the world for all sorts of cadels. Here is today's attempt.

 

P.S. - I think my "D" is awful. I'll have to work on that since all letters start "Dear..."

 

That is a good attempt, I like the letter M the most, it is the best proportioned, the A is also well done and I think the idea you had for the S has potential . I am curious what writing implements do you use for your Calligraphy etc? Do you use fountain pens or dip pens, what ink? Also do you use guidelines? If not a set of guidelines under the page may help a lot. I look forward to seeing more

 

[jbb]

  Lozzic said:

...I am curious what writing implements do you use for your Calligraphy etc? Do you use fountain pens or dip pens, what ink?

I use dip nibs that I've put into fountain pens so I get more ink per dip due to the feed. The nib I used for these letters was an Esterbrook Penesco 505. I use fountain pen ink.