Tuesday, November 20, 2018

An Abecedary to Color: O

Click here for a high-res, 
full-page printable.
 O  is a gift to illuminators, providing a beautiful frame around portraits, scenes, and patterns.  And because so many old poems or Bible verses use the vocative O to start a sentence, such as "O Lord" or "O my beloved," the English language will offer a lot of chances to use O.  
It doesn't give calligraphers total freedom, though; you'll have no serifs to work with.  


In collecting these letters, I have noticed a lot of variation in the weight of the outlines.  I have given you two different versions of the letter O, here made of leaves; one with thin gray lines that will almost disappear when you fill them, and one with heavy lines that look like the lead in stained glass.  You can decide what colors work with these.  At left, O in soft shades of green, from my upcoming series Song of Songs, Which is Solomon's.  At right, for contrast, I used the brightest markers in the set.        

1 comment: