Abecedary to color: X

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full-page printable to color in.

 X , this week's letter, lets us think about symmetry.  Many letters, especially the Versals based on Roman capitals, are symmetrical along their vertical or horizontal axis.  Or both, like the letters I, H, O, and X.  

This illustration comes from Learn Calligraphy,
by Margaret Shepherd, Random House.  page 91. 

If you are fascinated by symmetry, you can did deeper here.  Just as M C Escher's work [see V and W above] left people disoriented about the visual experience, Arthur Loeb's lifetime of study restored order to the many different kinds of symmetries

Abecedary to color: W

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The last W on this page, and the fourth V* on the previous post, are from a fascinating genre, where the artist seems to follow the rules of perspective but doesn't.  Your brain knows the structures can't exist but your eye keeps trying to find a way.  And coloring the image in doesn't help make it any less impossible.  You have to let go of trying to make sense of the image and just admit that you can be baffled.  

*That V is made of children's blocks to heighten the riddle.  (If you look carefully, you'll find that each picture shows something that starts with V.)


Enjoy the mental puzzles without worrying about solutions.  As R. Crumb said in one of his cartoons, "It's just ink on paper, folks!"  

The idea of impossible letters was first explored by type designers who were inspired by the work of M C Escher, a one-of-a-kind artist who changed forever the way people look at positive and negative space.  In the first half of the 20th century, he pioneered the study of tessellation, perspective, and the depiction of impossible objects. His work prefigured the concepts of fractals and forced perspective. 
Enjoy this excursion into the third dimension--and beyond.   

Abecedary to color: V

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This page offers six different takes on the very simple letter V.  It is an old letter from the earliest Latin alphabet, where for centuries it stood for the numeral 5 and also was used for the sound of U. Then it doubled itself to create W for the Germanic and English languages.    

Backwards V.  

V from same address, down underfoot and right way around. 

You might assume that a letter V based on Roman models should have a wider stroke on the left than on the right [see lower right].  Calligraphers know this contrast comes from holding a broad nib at a right-handed pen angle.  But once in a while you will see a typeface that reverses this order [see upper right], for no reason I've ever discovered.  

I'm adding this letter U, to show how easy it is for people who are unfamiliar with the realities of the broad-edged pen to get the thicks and thins wrong with U and V.  

 You'll also enjoy coloring in the grapes, once you've decided what color grapes actually should be.  Check out your grocery store [or your back yard, if you live in Chile] and compare.  

Above: two of the many grape colors, from my upcoming book Song of Solomon, to be published in 2020 by Paraclete Press.  

Abecedary to color: U

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full-page printable to color in.

U looks so simple, just half a circle and two uprights, but designers can't seem to resist filling it with all kinds of ornament and pattern.  

U is, in fact, a relatively recent addition to the alphabet, having been represented until well into the 16th century by the letter V.  As in carved inscriptions in Rome spelled Julius Caesar as IVLIVS CAESAR. You still won't find it in Polish, which seems to otherwise have an unlimited appetite for using consonants.   



Sometimes, when you're trying to understand letters from 12 centuries ago, you just have to wing it.  The fourth U of the page above is topped by a bird and some animal (a cat with its back fur up, maybe), but unless the man inside this letter is practicing yoga I cannot figure out what he is doing.  You are welcome to check out the original here, admire its blue and green color choices, make up your own story about this very flexible man, and color him in.   

Abecedary to color: T

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full-page printable to color in.

 t  he letter T comes in three distinct forms: a rounded spiral coil with a flat top; a central upright with a bar across the top; and the lower-case curved upright with a bar just above the middle (shown as this paragraph's capital but not included in this page's selection).  

This Celtic T (which happens to have an angular U woven into it) is characteristic of the playful, elastic, and sometimes surreal letters to be found in the Book of Kells.  The fish looks more real once you've colored him in, but--what color is a fish? Try everything from golden orange to teal blue to silvery gray.  Whatever you choose, it's clear there is a fish on the page, in a kind of 3-D realism, if you can accept that he happens to be snared in the tail of a sea monster lurking below.