Chapter 4

Taking a Few Baby Steps with Italic

In This Chapter

Checking the materials you will need

Looking at what Italic is

Practicing the shapes of the lower case letters

Practicing the whole alphabet

Writing words

Italic is a popular, practical, and very pretty alphabet sometimes called Chancery or Chancery Cursive. It originated in Italy during the Italian Renaissance and was a style of writing that was used at all levels of society — from official documents to personal correspondence. Leonardo da Vinci wrote a version of the Italic alphabet.

I am going to take a simple, step-by-step approach in presenting this first alphabet. I encourage you to be diligent about doing the work in this chapter and the next. Please don’t skip over anything in these two lessons. Once you’ve completed these two chapters, if you choose to jump around in the book or skip over things, you’ll have a good foundation to build on.

In this chapter I show you how to draw the Italic lowercase letters correctly. In the next chapter, I show you the techniques for using the calligraphy pen to draw those shapes and introduce you to the capital letters for this alphabet. Going over the letter shapes separately from learning the techniques of using the pen makes it easy for most people to become really proficient in doing calligraphy. Once you can do one alphabet well, it is pretty easy to pick up other alphabets. Once you know how to use the pen to do Italic, that skill will carry over to the other alphabets as well.

Practicing the shapes of the letters first without using a calligraphy pen and then doing the same letters later with a pen is the way that I was taught when I started out, and I’m convinced that it’s the best way to go. It helps avoid the frustration of trying to draw the letters correctly and at the same time struggling to control the pen. Breaking it down into two separate steps makes it easier.

You won’t be using a calligraphy pen in this chapter. To practice the shapes of the letters in this chapter, all you’ll need is a pen that has a fairly broad tip. Any pen that is between 1.0 and 2.0mm is perfect. A Sanford Uni-Ball Gel Impact Roller Ball Pen with a 1.0mm point is one of my favorites. Also the fiber-tip (Flair type) pen made by Paper Mate writes bold and is a good choice. Even if your pen is not as wide as my examples, that will not be a problem. I like to think of the examples as paths where the idea is to stay inside the edges, not something you’re supposed to color in. The one thing you want to avoid is a pen that makes a line that is a whole lot heavier than the examples. Some markers with fine points will work fine, but many markers have tips that are too wide. Standard ballpoint pens are usually too narrow and won’t show up very well.

Introducing Italic

I’ve chosen Italic as the first alphabet in this book for several reasons:

Italic is by far the most popular style among modern calligraphers. It is a beautiful style which is appropriate for almost any occasion. It is an alphabet that has many variations.

Italic is probably the most practical and versatile style that you can know how to do. You can use it for everything you might want to do, from a simple note or invitation to a formal certificate.

Italic can be written fairly rapidly.

Italic is a pretty easy alphabet to learn. It is the one alphabet in this book that most resembles our everyday handwriting. Italic has both a printed (calligraphic) form and a cursive or handwriting form.

Why is it that we call this alphabet Italic? Doesn’t italics have to do with the slanted letters you get when you click the italics button on your word processor? The answer is an interesting bit of historical trivia. First, the name, Italic, comes from the word, Italy, which is the country where the alphabet originated at the time of the Renaissance. During that same era, printers, whose craft was in its infancy, began to look for a typeface that could be used to emphasize words and set them off from the plain vertical letters of text. They adopted the new, very popular Italic alphabet to do the job. So, origi- nally, the Italic alphabet and italicized letters printed in books were one in the same thing. Over time, that changed, but the name stuck. Today, when words are italicized, it generally means that they are just a slanted form of a vertical font. However, the original italics were actually Italic letters. Italics doesn’t mean slanted; in fact, it refers to this alphabet.

To get a better idea of what I’m talking about, check out a sampling of the Italic alphabet yourself — just take a look at Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1: A sentence using the Italic alphabet.

It’s All in the Family — Six Simple and Easy Letter Families

To make things simple, I think of the 26 lowercase letters as being grouped into six letter families. I grouped the letters in these families according to the similarities in their shapes and the strokes that make them. Instead of practicing the letters in alphabetical order, it makes more sense to practice them in these six groups.

Almost all of these letters are made in one stroke without lifting the pen from the paper. A few require two strokes.

Getting the right proportion with the Italic lowercase letters is of primary importance. The most common mistake that people make with this alphabet is to make the letters the wrong proportion—either too tall or too fat. These letters are supposed to fit inside a parallelogram that leans slightly to the right and is about two-thirds as wide as it is tall. When you’re drawing the letters, visualize the shape in Figure 4-2.

Figure 4-2: Visualize this parallelogram when drawing the lowercase Italic letters.

The pull-down letters (the l shape)

The first letter family is the simplest. The letters in this family are all made with a simple, pull-down stroke as their main element. There are five letters in this family. They are i, l, j, f, and t.

Before you do the actual letters take a look at the pull-down stroke (see Figure 4-3). Notice the slant and how the stroke begins on the top of the line and then ends on the bottom line.

Figure 4-3: The pull-down shape.

Now trace over the lines that are drawn in gray in the practice below. After each stroke that you trace, copy it in the space provided. Begin each stroke on the top line and end on the bottom line. Focus on getting the slant just right.

Do not be concerned if it seems awkward at first trying to do these letters. The awkward feeling is only because making the letters this way is new to you. Just relax and go slowly. With practice, doing these letters will become easier and easier.

Now take a look at the letters that based on the pull-down stroke. First, study the examples that are drawn in black. Then alternate tracing and copying. Trace over each of the letters that are drawn in gray and then copy in the spaces between the ones you traced.

Please take note of a couple of things:

Pay very close attention to way the letters sometimes begin and end with little tails called serifs.

The i and the j have dots which actually look like little dashes.

The f and t have a horizontal crossbar.

The t is a short letter and its cross-bar begins at the point where the serif begins at the top of the first stroke.

Go slowly and try to keep your pull-down strokes perfectly straight. Don’t let them get curvy. Also, remember to keep their slant uniform.

Pull-down, bounce-over letters (the n shape)

The second family is made up of what I call the pull-down, bounce-over letters.

The seven letters in this family are n, m, r, h, b, k, and p. All these letters have a stroke that begins with the pull-down stroke which continues with a bounce-over, upward swing to the right. Check out the stroke in Figure 4-4.

Figure 4-4: The pull-down, bounce-over shape.

Before you make the actual letters, practice the pull-down, bounce-over stroke a few times. Notice how the bounce-over part of the stroke branches off from the pull-down part about halfway up. Try to make all the branching off happen at the halfway point. Trace and copy in the space below.

Now practice the letters themselves. As you practice, be careful that you make the letter p, in two strokes. If you make the entire letter in one stroke, the result will be that the long, staff part of the letter will turn out looking thicker and darker than the rest of the letter. That will not look good. So, make the p in two strokes.

Pull-down, swing-under, pull-down letters (the u shape)

This family is very similar to the previous family. These letters begin with a vertical stroke but instead of bouncing up and over, the stroke continues in a curve upward and to the right (see Figure 4-5). The letters that have this kind of stroke are the u, y, a, g, q, and d.

Figure 4-5: The pull-down, swing-under, pull-down shape.

Now practice the stroke.

Before you practice these letters below, examine how each letter is made. In particular, note that the d is made in two strokes.

It doesn’t look necessary for the d to be made in two strokes, but the reason is simple: When you start using the calligraphy pen, you’ll see that if you didn’t make the staff part of the d as a separate stroke, it would look too thick and dark.

Go ahead and practice each letter below.

Oval letters (the o shape)

Only three letters belong in this family — o, c, and e. As you can see from Figure 4-6, the stroke you need to use to make letters oval letters is, well oval.

Figure 4-6: The oval shape.

You may be tempted to use a circle while practicing drawing the oval shape, but keep the emphasis on oval and trace and copy the stroke below.

Before you practice the letters in the space below, look at the examples drawn in black. Then trace over each letter drawn in gray. Copy the letter in the space provided next to each letter.

Please notice that the e is made in two strokes. This is not entirely necessary, but it does make it easier to draw the correct shape. For that reason, most calligraphers prefer to make the e in two strokes.

x letters (the x shape)

Only three letters belong in this family as well: x, s, and z. These letters have diagonals that make the shapes (see Figure 4-7).

Figure 4-7: Drawing the x-shape.

Practice the x shape first. To get the proportions right, keep in mind that it should fit inside a slanting parallelogram. If you drew the slanting parallelogram (see Figure 4-2) and then connected the corners diagonally, you would have the x shown in Figure 4-7.

Practice the x-shape family letters. Remember that these letters have straight diagonals — even the s. Most people are not accustomed to making the s with a straight diagonal across the middle, but that’s how the Italic s is made. Practicing will help you get the feel for it.

v Letters (the v shape)

There are only two letters in this family: v and w (see Figure 4-8).

Figure 4-8: The v shape.

The trick to getting these letters right is making sure that the sides of the v are straight and not curved. Practice the v shape below.

Practice the two letters.

Putting Together What You Know to Make Letters and Words

In the appendix, I give you more opportunities to practice these lowercase letters, but you can give it a whirl right now by tracing the gray letters below and copying the letter into the spaces next to the letters.

Now you need to practice how to space letters when making a word. I set up the next practice exercise so you can trace a word and then copy it right next to the one you traced. Look at how the letters are spaced inside the word. They are really close together — be sure to duplicate the spacing. Although I provide only a couple of words below, you get a chance to practice more words in the appendix.

You not only need to know how to space letters within a word, but you also need to practice how to space the words themselves. I created the next practice exercise so you can trace the words on one line and then copy them on the following line. This way, you can see how the words are spaced apart — there’s just enough space to fit a letter o. Most people are not accustomed to spacing things this closely, but that’s all part of doing Italic.

If you find that you are having trouble fitting everything on the line, don’t despair — this is a common problem. Just work on tightening things up so the letters and words are closer together.