Chapter 19

Ten Fun Alphabets

In This Chapter

Looking at some simple variations of the six basic alphabets

Trying your hand at some more difficult variations

There must be tens of thousands of different alphabets. It would be impossible to count them all. If anyone doubts the truth of that statement, all he or she has to do is look at how many fonts can be downloaded onto a computer. In spite of the incredible number of alphabets, nearly all of them are variations of the six basic alphabets.

And guess what? In this book, you can check out how to do those six basic alphabets: Italic (see Chapter 6), Blackletter (see Chapter 8), Roman (see Chapter 9), Bookhand (see Chapter 10), Uncial (see Chapter 11), and Copperplate (see Chapter 13). When you know those six, you can turn them into thousands!

Once you see how this works, you might be inspired to create your own alphabets. Who knows, you might just create a new variation that will become popular with other calligraphers.

Even if you don’t create an entirely new variation, you can still develop your own style of doing the alphabets that are widely accepted. Being an artist myself, I have always encouraged individual expression. That applies to calligraphy just like any other kind of art.

As you experiment with the alphabets in this chapter, you will notice that I have not shown guide lines with these alphabets. Nor have I shown the sequence or direction of the strokes. If you have studied the alphabets in the rest of this book, I am confident you can figure out the strokes just by a close examination of the letters. If you’re able to do that, then you’re no neophyte — you’re well past the basics.

Nearly Persian

This is an alphabet that is based on a famous typeface (font) called Legend. It is a variation of Italic. Like Italic the pen angle is 45 degrees and the letters have just a small amount of slant to them. There are lots of fourishes and swashes.

Draw the capitals and ascenders tall. The descenders are long, but the body of the letters is short (only about 3 pen widths). This is a fun alphabet that always looks fantastic wherever it is used.

Pseudo-Chinese

This is a very simple looking alphabet that can be a real challenge to the calligrapher. This alphabet isn’t easy because the pen angle constantly changes from one stroke to another. It would almost help to be ambidextrous to do this alphabet well. It took me three attempts to produce what you see here.

These letters are a variation of Roman. The height is 3 pen widths.

Hebrew-esque

It’s fun to try to duplicate the look of other alphabets. This alphabet is supposed to look like Hebrew.

It is a variation of the roan alphabet. The pen angle is as close to 0 as you can manage. That means that the pen will be pointing straight out to the side. The height of these letters is 5 to 7 pen widths.

French Ronde

This alphabet which is a variation of Bookhand, is very popular and not difficult to do. There are many versions of Ronde, of which this is one. It is an elegant and pretty style which is especially appropriate if you’re doing calligraphy for a wedding.

The pen angle is 30 degrees and the height of the letter body is 5 or 6 pen widths.

Old German (aka Fraktur)

It’s obvious that this alphabet is a variation of Blackletter. This variation is created by curving the strokes and adding little curlicues to the ends of the strokes.

The curlicues are fun to make. While the ink is still wet, turn the nib up on a corner and draw the curved shape.

The pen angle is 55 degrees and the x-height (the height of the letter body) is 4 pen widths.

It’s Greek to Me

This is another Roman variation that duplicates the style of the Greek alphabet. The letter height is 8 pen widths and the pen angle is very flat (the pen points directly back towards you).

Digital

This version of digital letters is a variation of the Roman alphabet. The calligraphy pen is really not well suited for this kind of letter. The letter height is 8 pen widths. The pen angle is 45 degrees.

Upside-Down Letters

I’m not sure what purpose this alphabet serves except it’s just for fun. Kids get a real kick out of seeing this alphabet.

The alphabet is a hodge-podge of letters, numbers, and symbols. The idea is that they still look like letters, numbers, or symbols when they are turned upside down. If you write a message using these letters, it will look like gibberish if you try to read it upside-down.

At the bottom is a secret message which you can read by turning this book upside down.

Fancy Fancy

A variation of Copperplate. The main difference here is the long ascenders and descenders.

Funky Letters

I wondered if it was possible to create an alphabet based on mistakes that I have seen students make. The Funky Letters are what I came up with. This is a variation of Italic. The letter height is five pen widths and the pen angle is 55 degrees.