Chapter 6
Perfecting the Italic Alphabet
In This Chapter
Checking the materials you will need and what you need to know
Looking at ways to improve your calligraphy
Checking the common errors that people make
Learning how to join the letters for Italic handwriting
Simplifying the capital letters
Using calligraphy for writing letters and addressing envelopes
It almost goes without saying that the more you practice, the more your calligraphic skills will improve. That’s pretty much a given. However, it’s not really how much or how often you practice that is the key factor here; it is the effectiveness of your practice that is the key to seeing real results.
In this chapter I want to give you some tips for ways to improve your skills. I’ll show you some special things to look for to help make your practice really effective and also explain how to avoid many of the most common errors. If you use the things I suggest, I am certain that you will see your skills improve rapidly.
Checking Yourself with the 5-S Formula
I think that one of the best ways to check your progress is to use a formula that I read about several years ago in an old handwriting book. The formula is broken down into five words, each beginning with the letter s. As you review your work against each part of this formula, you should be able to zero in on where you need more practice. After you discover what areas you need to work on, redo some of the practice exercises you’ve worked on, focusing on the tips in this section to correct your form.
Strokes
The most important thing to look at when you’re evaluating how well you are doing is the kind of stroke you are using. By stroke I mean how you move the pen as you are drawing the letters. Your stroke should be smooth and not shaky. Smooth strokes show confidence and strength while shaky strokes will look weak and uncertain, as if the person who made them does not really know what she is doing (see Figure 6-1). Strive to develop a smooth and confident stroke.
|
Figure 6-1: Shaky stroke (left); better stroke (right). |
|
The stroke should also be made using the correct pen angle. An incorrect pen angle can spoil the entire appearance of your calligraphy. If the pen angle is too “flat” the letters will have down strokes that look too wide. If the pen is held at too steep an angle, the letters will have skinny down strokes and be too wide where the letters have horizontals (see Figure 6-2 for examples of incorrect pen angles). I tell you what pen angle to use for each alphabet discussed in this book.
|
Figure 6-2: “Steep” pen angle (left); “flat” pen angle (right). |
|
Stroke is so important that even if you do everything else perfectly but your stroke is poorly done, your calligraphy will never look right. On the other hand if your stroke is strong and smooth and your pen angle is correct, the other things about your letters may not be what they should be, and your calligraphy can still look really good.
When you practice, think about your stroke. Strive to make the strokes smooth and confident and to keep your pen angled correctly.
Shapes
Obviously, you should strive to use letters which have the correct shapes for the particular alphabet you are doing. There are several common errors that people make when it comes to making the correct shapes. As you practice, double-check the shapes of your letters to make sure they are correct (Figure 6-3 gives you an example of what incorrect and correct shapes look like).
|
Figure 6-3: Incorrect shapes (left); correct shapes (right). |
|
Slant
The slant of the letters should be uniform. Ideally, the slant should be from 3 to 6 degrees from the vertical. You can visualize this by imagining the position of the minute hand on a clock when it is about two minutes after the hour (see Figure 6-4).
|
Figure 6-4: A visual for the perfect slant. |
|
Fortunately, Italic is very forgiving when it comes to how much slant you can get away with. I have seen Italic written with no slant at all and also with a slant of 10 to 15 degrees from the vertical. In both situations, if the slant was consistent throughout, it looked okay. The really important thing about slant is consistency. If your slant is the same for every letter, it will look good. Slant is a problem when it is not uniform. (See Figure 6-5.)
|
Figure 6-5: Inconsistent slant (left); uniform slant (right). |
|
Sizes
The sizes of the letters are also an important element that you should evaluate. Consistency is again an important key here. (See Figure 6-6.)
The way to keep the sizes of the letters consistent is always to use guide lines — either penciled in on the paper or by using a guide sheet underneath (see Chapter 3 for more on guide lines). The guide lines you use should be the correct distance apart for the size pen nib you are using.
|
Figure 6-6: Inconsistent sizes (left); uniform sizes (right). |
|
Spacing
How is your spacing? When you look at the distances between letters and words, these spaces should look even. You don’t want some letters to look closer together or farther apart than all the other letters. Again, uniformity is absolutely important. (See Figure 6-7.)
For the Italic alphabet, the letters inside words are usually spaced just about as closely together as you can reasonably fit them. Serifs can actually even touch the previous or next letters. The distance between words should be the width of the letter o.
|
Figure 6-7: Inconsistent spacing (left); uniform spacing (right). |
|
The Simplest Way to Practice Italic — Write It!
One real advantage that the Italic alphabet has over almost all other calligraphic alphabets is it can be used for handwriting. What better way to practice the Italic alphabet than to use it for your everyday handwriting! Not only will you be practicing the alphabet, but you’ll also be developing a beautiful and highly distinctive handwriting style to boot.
My son, Michael, learned to write in Italic when he was in elementary school. (You can probably guess who his teacher was.) Today Michael is an adult, and his handwriting is truly distinctive. He still receives compliments for how beautifully he writes. Your handwriting can be distinctive, too.
If you carry your fountain pen with you wherever you go, you can use it at every opportunity. You can become a true “calligraphic doodler.”
Joining Letters Cursively — How It’s Done
The key to writing Italic is joining the letters together. Most of the joins are simple and intuitive. The serifs provide the means for making most of the joins.
Use a medium nib for the following practice exercises.
Simple diagonal joins
The easiest joins to make are the diagonal joins from a serif at the end of one letter to a serif at the beginning of another letter. When you make these joins, you will see that the spacing between the letters has to be wider than you would use if you were doing Italic in what Fred Eager aptly called the “calligraphic mode.” You can use this kind of join anytime you have one of 12 letters (a, c, d, h, i, k, l, m, n, u, x, or z) preceding one of 13 letters (i, j, m, n, p, r, t, u, v, w, x, y, or z). Figure 6-8 shows you what I mean.
|
Figure 6-8: Diagonal joins from serif to serif. |
|
Trace over the letters drawn in gray and then copy in the spaces between.
Diagonal joins to a, d, e, g, o, and q
If you want to make a join from a serif to a, d, g, o, or q, you must go “up and over” (see Figure 6-9). There’s a good possibility that you already make this kind of join in your present handwriting style so this should not be too difficult to understand.
|
Figure 6-9: Diagonal joins from serif to “up and over.” |
|
Now use the following exercise to practice this join.
Horizontal joins from f, o, r, t, v, and w
These joins are not unique; you’ve probably seen them before, but perhaps they’re a little different from the way that you presently join these letters in your normal handwriting (see Figure 6-10). It’s especially important that the joins from the f and the t be made from the crossbars on the letters.
|
Figure 6-10: Horizontal joins from these letters. |
|
Practice the horizontal join in the following exercise.
Joins from b, p, and s
I call these the “back and out” joins, because you have to come back out after you have completed making the stroke to the left which ends each of these letters (see Figure 6-11). Practice this join without making it into a loop.
|
Figure 6-11: Joins from b, p, and s. |
|
Practice the “back and out” joins in the exercise below.
Joins to ascenders
These joins are done without making loops. Simply swing upward from the join and come straight down back over the same line without making a loop (see Figure 6-12).
|
Figure 6-12: Joins to the ascenders. |
|
Practice joining to ascenders in the exercise, but don’t use loops.
Joins to an s
This is a unique kind of join. It is the only join where the shape of the letter actually is changed to make the join look good. The key here is that the top of the s is not drawn (see Figure 6-13).
|
Figure 6-13: Joins to the s. |
|
Practice joining to the s in the exercise below. Remember: The top of the s is not drawn.
Joins from an e
Since the e is a two-stroke letter, the join is done as it is shown in Figure 6-14. This is probably a join that you have never seen before.
|
Figure 6-14: A join from an e. |
|
Practice joining from an e below.
No joins
It is not good to join from descenders such as g, j, q, and y. Making loops would certainly detract from the beautiful appearance of these letters. It also tends to promote sloppiness.
Avoid joining too many letters in a row. It is good to lift your pen after joining three or four letters. Lifting the pen will help you develop a steady rhythm and speed.
Simplifying the capitals
Among the many people who use Italic as their everyday handwriting style, most prefer to use very simple capital letters. Some people prefer that the capitals have no slant. I like to slant the capitals the same as the lower case letters. In any case, the capitals should remain unjoined to the lowercase letters (see Figure 6-15).
|
Figure 6-15: Simplified capital letters. |
|
Reviewing the Most Common Errors
In the following sections, I show you the most common errors calligraphers face when doing Italic. Each illustration shows you an error, and if you see something familiar — don’t worry, I let you know how to correct it.
Droopy a shapes
In Figure 6-16, you can see four letters where the a shape has been made incorrectly. The tops of the “bowl” parts of these letters are too angled and the bottoms are too rounded. To correct this error, you need to make the tops of the a shapes flatter and the bottoms sharper. Refer to Chapter 4 to see the correct shapes. To the right of the four letters, I have included two sketches of girl’s profiles to show the error and the correction in a way that you can visualize it. The sad girl is the wrong shape. The happy girl is the correct shape. She even has a book balanced on her head to show you how much poise she has!
|
Figure 6-16: Droopy a shapes. |
|
Spikey letters
In Figure 6-17 we see letters where the narrow curves have been made too pointed. The letters look sharp and spikey. This error is not as bad as the previous error, but it can still cause problems. For example, the n and the u look too much alike. To correct this error, avoid such sharp angles when making the letters. Use narrow curves.
|
Figure 6-17: Spikey letters. |
|
Fat and rounded letters
The letters in Figure 6-18 look too fat and rounded. These letters are too wide for Italic. This is a common mistake which is easy to correct. Just remember that the body of the letters should fit inside a tilted parallelogram as described in Chapter 3.
|
Figure 6-18: Fat and rounded letters. |
|
Rounded arches
In the examples in Figure 6-19 the letters are not only too wide but arches of the m and n are too rounded. These letters which are formed using the “pull-down — bounce-over” shape, should be made so that they are narrower and the “bounce-over” parts of the letters branches off from the “pull-down” parts about half way up. In these examples, the branching off occurs too near the top of the letters. See Chapter 3 for details about the correct shapes.
|
Figure 6-19: Rounded arches. |
|
Crooked pull-down strokes
Figure 6-20 shows three letters where the slant of the pull-down strokes is not uniform. The way to correct this error is to make certain that all the pull-downs are slanted the same amount. If they are all slanted the same amount, they should be parallel.
|
Figure 6-20: Crooked pull-down strokes. |
|
Branching too high or too low
In Figure 6-21, the “bounce-over” parts of the shapes branch off either too high or too low. The branching should be halfway. In the example, the first letter in each pair shows branching that is too high. The second letter in each pair shows branching that is too low.
|
Figure 6-21: Branching too high or too low. |
|
Gaps in letters
Figure 6-22 shows three letters that have open spaces where the letters should have closed shapes. This kind of error can occur in any letter that has a closed shape. The gap could be at the top or at the bottom. The way to correct this error is to make sure that you make every letter complete and don’t leave any gaps where strokes should meet.
|
Figure 6-22: Gaps in letters. |
|
Badly shaped e’s
Figure 6-23 shows three examples of how not to make the letter e. The biggest problem here has to do with the way the second stroke is made (see Chapter 4 for details on how to make the letter in two strokes). The second stroke should be headed in a horizontal direction when it meets the first stroke in the middle. In the first example, the second stroke meets the first stroke in the middle, but it is slanted too much. In the second example, it is not horizontal and it joins the first stroke too low. The third example has the second stroke joining the first stroke too high.
|
Figure 6-23: Badly shaped e’s. |
|
Badly shaped s’s
Figure 6-24 shows three examples of how not to make the letter s. In the first example, the middle of the letter is not disgonal; it is curvy. This part of the letter should be drawn as a straight diagonal (see Chapter 3). The other two examples have tops and bottoms that do not appear to be equally proportioned – either the bottom or the top is too big. To make this letter correctly, the tops and bottoms should appear to be equal.
|
Figure 6-24: Badly shaped s’s. |
|
Badly shaped t’s
Figure 6-25 shows three examples of t’s that are incorrect. The first t is too tall and also its crossbar does not begin at the point of the serif at the top of the first stroke. The second example has a croosbar that is too low and too long. The third example has a croosbar that begins at the correct place but is too long. If you are prone to making any of these errors, concentrate on making the letter the correct height and adding the crossbar correctly.
|
Figure 6-25: Badly shaped t’s. |
|
Errors with joins
There are two kinds of common errors illustrated in Figure 6-26. First, you see three joins which are supposed to be diagonals, but they are curved instead. This kind of error severely detracts from the beautiful, rhythmic flow of the Italic letters. The way to avoid this error is simply to make these joins straight diagonals.
The second group of three pairs of letters in this figure shows joins that curve downward below the writing line and create a space underneath the letter. A “back and out” join should not do this. Instead, whenever a letter ends with a stroke to the left, the join should retrace the stroke along the bottom of the letter and then swing up just like the diagonal join to connect to the next letter.
|
Figure 6-26: Errors with joins. |
|
Errors in capitals: a through k
In Figure 6-27, you see the following letters: The first a is too wide. The second is too narrow and also the sides are not angled equally. The first b is too wide. The second b has a top part that is too small and a bottom part which is too large. The c and the d are too narrow. The e and the f are too wide. The g is too narrow. The first h is too wide. The second one has sides which are not parallel. The first k is too wide. The second k has curved “legs” that should be straight.
|
Figure 6-27: Errors in capital letters a through k. |
|
Errors in capitals: l through t
Figure 6-28 illustrates the following errors: The l is too wide. It should be only half as wide as it is tall. The first m has a middle “V” which is too short and does not touch the writing line. It should come down to touch the line. The second m is badly proportioned. The two halves should be equal. The first n is too wide, and the second is too narrow. The o is too narrow. The o is a wide letter. The first p is too wide and the second is too narrow. The r is too wide and the “leg” is curved. It should be straight. The first t is too wide, and the second is too narrow.
|
Figure 6-28: Errors in capital letters l through t. |
|
Errors in capitals: u through z
Figure 6-29 illustrates these errors: The U is too wide. The pairs of v’s, x’s, y’s, and z’s illustrate letters that are first, too wide and second, too narrow.
|
Figure 6-29: Errors in capital letters u through z. |
|
The Nearly Lost Art of Beautiful Correspondence
In today’s world it seems as though the handwritten letter is almost a thing of the past. E-mail and word processors have become the norm. Even when a note or memo is handwritten, it is most often done hastily with a ballpoint pen or marker. When was the last time that you received a handwritten letter or note where the writer used a fountain pen? If you can remember when, you are the rare exception. Is beautiful handwritten correspondence a lost art? I certainly hope not.
Pre-typewriter formats
The handwritten letter does not have to follow the typical typewriter/word processor format. If you simply look back in history at some of the examples of handwritten letters, you will find some exquisite designs (see Figure 6-30).
|
Figure 6-30: Three designs you can use for letter writing. |
|
The first example in Figure 6-30 shows the first word placed out into the left margin and the remainder of the paragraph is indented. This was a common format used before the days of typewriters.
The second example shows the writing inside a shape. The third example shows spiral writing. In spiral writing, you would begin in the center and write outward. This is challenging to write as well as to read, because the paper has to be turned.
If you try a spiral design, concentrate on making all the down strokes of the letters radiate outward from the center. Figure 6-31 gives you a template for spiral writing. Place your paper on top of this template. If you can see the template through your paper, you can use it as a guide sheet to write in a spiral.
|
Figure 6-31: Spiral writing template. |
|