Calligraphy Every Day 27: English Two-ply

This lovely version of the Roman alphabet, named after a knitting yarn called Two-ply, is appropriate for cold weather. (It makes a sweater that is warm but not super-warm.)  The letters are built of doubled lightweight strokes.  To keep them precise, watch the white space taking shape between them.  It's harder than it looks, but worth the trouble to dress up a few letters.  

Use a slender pen, at most one-tenth the width of the letter's height. 

This alphabet is illustrated along with many other original ABCs in Capitals for Calligraphy. 

We will come back to this style to vary the doubling in half a dozen different ways.  

Calligraphy Every Day 26: Donut

It's impossible to look at some letters and not see their hidden identity.  When you write an O with a heavy pen it just screams "Donut" to some calligraphers.  Me anyway.  Enjoy writing these plump little letters and thinking of ways they can put your message across.
You might be tempted to turn these heavy letters into "Donut + munchkins" in approximation of yesterday's alphabet, Beady.  I think it might work, but I'm already full.  

Left-hander friendly, too; donuts don't mind which hand you use! 

Calligraphy Every Day 25: Beady

This alphabet, Beady, is made of the simplest strokes of the Speedball pen--straight lines, circles, and dots.  It's cute, especially if you keep the dots clear and pay attention to where they almost touch the round ends of the other strokes. 

Let the beads touch each other once in a while, but keep them clear. 

Calligraphy Every Day 24: Stained Glass Gothic

Stained Glass Gothic can help you whenever you have to make letters by putting together pieces of something real, like tile, paper scraps, see-through acetate, quilt pieces, or stained glass.  It's just simple Gothic, separated into strokes. 

Ignore the grey tone of the ink.  Technical problems with the scanner! 

Calligraphy Every Day Project 4: Frosting

You'd be surprised how often you need to squeeze words out of a frosting tube.  Once you master this skill, you'll find ways to use it for many more occasions--cookies, greeting cards, cupcakes.  

Retrace the alphabets of January to pick up some creative styles for your next cake-worthy occasion: Waity, Stringy, Mono Italic.  And Donut. 

Calligraphy Every Day 23: Dryland

What, oh, what can you do with a dried-up marker?  Lots!  Here is a gorgeous alphabet Dryland, based on a 20th-century calligraphers' favorite called Neuland. 

The only drawback of Dryland is that you have to get it right the first time--no touching it up.  I rethought the U, and it shows. 

The letters are heavy, about 3 1/2 pen widths tall.  The pen is held flat, so left-handers can write this just as well as their adroit counterparts.  The other pen angle is 90°.  Easy!  To make the stroke look dryer, write faster.  

Calligraphy Every Day 22: Roman

The letter forms of the Roman alphabet lie under everything we read in English and many other languages today.  The version is about 9 times as high as the width of the pen. The letters, in several letter families, are 1 1/4, 1, 3/4, and 1/2 as wide as their height.  Because small changes in these ratios make big changes in the letters, more Roman height and weight variations will appear during the year.  

Roman is a demanding style.  The most important aspect is to get the proportions right.  I'm a little out of practice, though, so the strokes are a little off vertical. 

Practice Roman calligraphy in the letter families shown on the chart at right: 

This alphabet is covered in great depth in Learn Calligraphy, pages 29-46.  It's worth studying and practicing, to give your calligraphy sophistication and depth.  

 

Calligraphy Every Day 21: Glister

What do you get when you introduce the graceful double curve of the parenthesis to the severe letter shape of Gothic?  Answer: an alphabet like Glister, which is just one of the many variations on this hexagonal calligraphic standard you'll encounter during the year.    

Don't try this without a penciled center line!  You'll have to play with the letters a little to decide if you want the points of the white shape or the black strokes to line up horizontally.   

The parenthesis brackets always intrigued me when I was learning to read and write--not the (round) ones, nor the [square] ones, but the {double swoop}.  It only seems natural to try making letters out of them.


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Calligraphy Every Day 20: Copper

It's National Handwriting Day in the USA. Chosen to commemorate the birthday of John Hancock, whose oversized signature on the Declaration of Independence was aimed at the king of England so he could read it without his glasses, January 23 reminds us that the handwritten word is still important in the modern world.

If you think it's a lot of trouble to send a properly-written thank you note or condolence letter, think about the high standards our ancestors rose to in the past, with Copperlight calligraphy shown here.

This alphabet is actually easier for left-handers!  Right-handers use an angled pen nib holder to make the slanted strokes smooth to write. 

The little squiggle under John Hancock has a name: it's a paraph, which made a signature harder to forge. 

 

Calligraphy Every Day: #19 Mono Italic

We've seen how Italic is still Italic even when it doesn't slant.  Mono Italic, today's alphabet, reminds us that Italic doesn't necessarily have to be written with a broad-edged pen, either.  This purist's italic reduces all that thick and thin to an unvarying monoline about 1/8 as wide as the letter's height.  It's beautiful in its simplicity, and you can write it with anything--pencil, ballpoint, laser pointer, cake icing.  The illustration here was done with a classic Speedball B 5 pen point.  

Pay attention to the shape of the letter body by practicing in letter groups: a, c, d, e, g, q, u, y, and b, h, k, m, n, p. 

If you have trouble visualizing the organic curve of the rounded triangular letter body, there is a detailed lesson and suggested model in Learn Calligraphy, page 127 [for today, ignore thicks and thins, just think about spines and chins].

  

 

 I love Mono Italic.  It's a calligraphic palate-cleanser. 

Calligraphy Every Day 18: 26 x M, plus 1 L, 1 K

Today the usual alphabet is reduced--or magnified--to one letter in 26 versions.  The letter M is particularly useful in this week of focus on sending handwritten mail.  It initializes Mr, Mrs, Ms, and Miss.  
(And you'll need L and K to celebrate the initials of one of America's heroes.)

 Of course M starts my name, too, and a surprising number of my friends'.  Here's a shoutout to Marilyn, Mariana, Maura, Mary, Mahala, Marion, Martha, Molly, Miriam, Mike, Martin, and other M s--you know who you are. 

These 26 Ms are just the tip of the iceberg, dashed off quickly with just one size of one broad-edged pen. Future one-letter alphabets will feature different pens.  

Calligraphy Every Day Project 3: Addressing an envelope

In three days it will be National Handwriting Day, January 23.  Wouldn't it be a great idea to celebrate this holiday by mailing a handwritten letter to someone important to you? I've written two books on the importance of this civilized tradition, The Art of the Handwritten Note and The Art of the Personal Letter,  available everywhere.

The envelope you put your note into is like gift wrap. Take care and use your creativity to give the recipient a delicious sense of anticipation.  

Two basic layout choices: flush left, slanted left. 

This envelope mixes colors from the palette of red and turquoise.  The blue border, from Learn World Calligraphy, is available to print out at margaretshepherd.com

  

For more inspiration, go to the website of last year's winners of the Graceful Envelope contest.  And if you get really inspired, there's still time to submit an entry before February 25 this year staged by the Washington Calligraphers Guild.

Calligraphy Every Day 17: Gothic Highlight

 Most broad-edged letter styles can be written with a split pen and then filled in with your choice of colors.  Gothic Highlight here is inked in with black up to a little over the middle, with the rest left white, evoking the natural light and shadow of a solid object. This technique is centuries old, and was a favorite with Fraktur artists. It's even easier if you use a pen to fill the strokes, rather than a brush. 

Keep in mind that the letters here are displayed almost three times larger than their original height of 1/4 inch, magnifying some of their little irregularities and glitches.

Actual size.

Calligraphy Every Day 16: Upright italic

Although in the world of typography "italic" means slanted version of Roman, in the world of calligraphy it is a style with a particular body shape.  It doesn't necessarily even have to slant.  This alphabet, Upright Italic, lets you work with a letter that is straight and narrow but graceful too.  

Pay attention to the shape of the letter body by practicing in letter groups: a, c, d, e, g, q, u, y, and b, h, k, m, n, p. 

 

Calligraphy Every Day 15: Letterbox

I like making letters out of the simplest elements.   Letterbox is built of two straight strokes, which join by letting their points touch or their flat ends meet.  No overlap.  Keep those corners sharp! 

The proofreader informs me that the j is missing its dot. 

Calligraphy Every Day 14: Pencil rough

When you plan a calligraphy layout, you need to rough out the letters to see how the spacing works.  You can get a good approximation of your final lettering, without laboring over a draft and then starting over, with Pencil Rough letters.  

Pencil lead can be ground flat to make the thicks and thins of a broad-edged pen.  A wide carpenter's pencil comes already flat. 

You may like the texture of pencil letters so well you find ways to use it on finished work!

Calligraphy Every Day 13: Bookhand

Out of all 365 + possibilities, Bookhand is my very favorite calligraphy style.  You'll see versions of it here again and again over the year, but its versatility is not its only virtue.  I love it because it is simultaneously complex and simple.  

Practice in groups: Rounded letters o d p q b c e; arched letters u n h m r t f j; straight letters l i k; diagonal letters w v x y z; individual letters a g s.  You can also take note of the affinity of d/p q/b u/h and other letter pairs that resemble upside-down versions of each other.  

 

I've analyzed Bookhand several times in my instruction books, such as Learn Calligraphy, but the basic key to understanding it and practicing it is to get the proportions right.  The family groups listed in the caption make this clear.   

 

Calligraphy Every Day 12: Database

Even straight lines allow for distinctive letter styles, like simple but evocative Database. 

Once state of the art for machine-readable characters, these letters still convey an air of the android. 

Essentially a box with rounded corners, the basic letter shape is decorated with a clubbed double stroke that originally was intended to help machines read the letters.  

 

Calligraphy Every Day Weekly Project 2: Recipe collection

Though most of us find and collect recipes on line now, there's still something precious about a recipe written in the handwriting of someone you love.  You can set about starting a collection of favorite recipes by copying them onto classic 3" x 5" cards.  Collect them in a file box, or punch them and string them on a ribbon. And enjoy using them for a gift, a family legacy, a fundraiser, or a decoration; or just cook your family's favorite meals.  

This is a simple collection of recipes I put together when my children, away at college or in their first apartments, called home for ingredients in dishes they remembered and wanted to make themselves.  To fit everything in, I lettered them larger than final size.  We pulled them together into a collection that made nice  favors at an anniversary party commemorating "35 good years and some great ones." 

You don't have to stick to a standardized format. Whether your recipes call for ten words or two hundred, get them down in your own designs. Enlist your friends, relatives, co-workers, fellow volunteers, or neighbors, to create something unique.  

Two different layouts.

 
Your recipes do not actually have to be for things that you eat.  Make a permanent, appealing record of anything you need to measure. 

These illustrations are borrowed from Margaret Shepherd's Calligraphy Projects for Pleasure and Profit, now out of print Calligraphy Projects. 

Calligraphy Every Day 11: Simplest italic

In many people's lexicons the word calligraphy means Italic lettering.  But Italic is an approach not just one style.  Here, to start an occasional feature, is a version I call Simplest Italic.  It's enlarged from handwriting that started out about 1/8" tall--that's why it looks so ragged at the edges.  You can see the ink and the paper texture much more clearly than in real life.   

Letter families are crucial to practicing Italic comfortably, rhythmically, and accurately.  The A family includes a c d e g q u y and f; the B family includes b h k m n p r.  Diagonal strokes form s v w x z and part of k.

  

Calligraphy Every Day 10: Masquerades

My mantra: a letter can be anything; anything can be a letter. 

Masquerades features a zoo of 26 animals posing as the first letter of their names. 

Some of these are a stretch--if you have trouble figuring out which animal is posing, leave a question on the blog and I'll answer it.  

Well, OK, this one IS a stretch; an x of rays.  What other animal starts with x?

Walt Whitman wrote, "I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd...not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole world."  I feel like that about letters.

   

A Place To Flourish: Flourish Friday - Ornamental Fraktur Calligraphy

A Place To Flourish: Flourish Friday - Ornamental Fraktur Calligraphy

Calligraphy Every Day 9: Fraktur

One of America's most charming home-made alphabets, Fraktur grew out of the document scripts brought to the Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Ontario area by German settlers.  They preserved and improved this letter, for a century and a half of use in decorated birth certificates, bookplates, house blessings, student merit rewards, and even formal courtship letters.

Feel free to get creative in making new letter shapes. 

Legibility and uniformity are not essential. 

Calligraphy Every Day 8: typewriter

Typewriter letters come from a historic period many people can still remember, back when font choice came in one option.  Until 1961, you chose your font when you chose your typewriter, and the only decision was whether you wanted ten or twelve characters per inch (Pica vs Elite).  

If you'd like to evoke that pre-digital era with your pen, write these letters with an unvarying line, ending their letter strokes with a substantial flat serif. 

Every letter has the same width, so that i is just as wide as m. Note complex a and g. 

Calligraphy Every Day 7: Roadside

Handmade American signage is full of invention and can-do spirit, like these Roadside letters.  First appreciated by discerning calligrapher Ben Shahn in the 1930s [see example], they have continued to inspire new indigenous letterforms outside the European tradition. 

Roadside letters are made by talented but untrained people who need to get a message across.  They are aware that traditional fonts are made of thick and thin strokes but they are not sure where those thicks and thins actually belong. The letters are characteristically narrow to crowd them all in on one line. 

Left or right hander, keep your eyes open to the gems of lettering around you.  

Crude materials can inspire resourceful calligraphers to come up with fresh ideas.  The letters shown here were written on the stiff cardboard from a pad of paper. 

 

  

Calligraphy Every Day 6: Mesh

I love calligraphy markers.  They're cheap, bold, and easy to use.  They range from 2 mm to 5 mm and beyond.  They're available everywhere.  Many brands come in a rainbow of colors and none of them leak.  

But that's not all: one extra virtue that markers offer is the chance to make magical ribbons of perfectly spaced stripes. Just cut out a small triangular notch--on center or off center--to create striped strokes. This alphabet, Mesh, starts with a basic striped marker letter. 

Notched markers, or specially-made metal pens, produce opulent coiling striped ribbons. 

The letter A above shows how you can take striped letters one step further, by using a narrower pen to pull out some of the thin strokes past the end of the letter.  You can tailor these small strokes to mesh with each other in logos, monograms, and displays. 

Calligraphy Every Day: Weekly project 1

Storing your holiday treasures--every last one
Now is a good time to gather up all those holiday decorations and put them away for 11 months.  But if your house behaves like mine, Christmas cleanup begins to resemble an Easter egg hunt, where you come across hidden and lost decorations for days afterwards.  Maybe weeks. 

I'm a big fan of the temporary bin--an open basket or box designated to corral things that turn up, because we all know that you'll find the last tree ornament and creche figurine the day after you close the storage box and trundle it up to the attic.   

Bins and labels help keep your cleanup from unraveling.  To make a clean sweep and round up the strays, hold the last items neatly for a few extra days in a container that you have tagged with a pretty label in one of your newly acquired calligraphy scripts.  Happy de-holidaying!   

Instead of a plain label, you could also tag your basket with letters on the back of a recycled Christmas card. 
   

PS: This approach works for any big sorting project--giving you the satisfaction of nearly finishing 99% of the job while the last few stragglers show up. 

Calligraphy Every Day 5: Stringy

Stringy gives you the fun and convenience of an uninterrupted line.  You can put it to work in designs that use letters made of thread, or frosting, or a beam of light. Whatever your material, it's a visual pleasure.  By making a mental game of it, you can write most letters and many words without an interruption.   

Try writing without lifting, and think about a meandering piece of string.  

Calligraphy Every Day 4: Aura Caps

Sometimes the best way to learn a calligraphy style like Aura Caps is just sit with a pen and copy it by rote.  The letters in such alphabets will reveal to you their affinities.  Most of the letters have a round swash at the upper left; as you go on, you'll also begin to appreciate the visual unity of their carefully dovetailed lower corners and their narrow, high-waisted proportions.  

These letters are NOT best suited for writing long words and phrases.  Use them instead for short words, monograms, and logos.  And, of course, they capitalize the lower-case script called Aura, which you'll learn later in the month.  

Calligraphy Every Day 3: Fat Caps

Although Fat Caps are the simplest possible letters--unvarying line, basic Roman form, heavy serifs--they just radiate personality.  Use them for catching attention and adding emphasis, or for building a design in a completely different medium such as stencils or cookies or cake decorating.  Just keep them at their ideal body weight; no heavier and not much lighter. 
And of course, this alphabet contrasts dramatically with slanted, intricate, or lightweight calligraphic scripts.  We will explore many of those as the year goes by.

To maintain visual drama, keep the line heavy in relation to the letter height.  Leave plenty of room in your rough draft to accommodate the serifs, which extend at least one pen width to each side of the stroke. 

Calligraphy Every Day 2: Waity

Sometimes you have to work with paper that is a little too thirsty; it soaks up too much ink, too fast. You can turn this to your advantage with this cute little brush alphabet, Waity, which adds ball serifs to the ends of strokes and the corners of letters. 

Tissue paper, newsprint, paper towels, paper napkins--now you can write anywhere you like, with appealing style. All you have to learn to do is wait! 

Dip any pointed brush in any ink, hold it straight up and down, and write on any absorbent paper. Experiment with short pauses or long ones, gradual acceleration or abrupt starts and stops.