An Abecedary to Color: Z

Click here for a full-size page
to print out and color in.  

Z* is for Zoë, Zack, Zelda, Zappa, and zowie!  
And Z is for ZOO.  So here are a group of animals who are happy to pose on your last page of letters.  You can color them in with natural colors or choose some outlandish combinations. Try contrasting colors that make the zebra stand out or pick related ones that help him disappear.  


Thanks for taking me along on this colorful journey from A to Z. Time for a nap.  


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This letter reminds me of a family story.  My father was born in England, naturalized in Canada, and finally  became an an American citizen.  He used to describe how border agents liked to trap people like him--for no particular reason--when they crossed over.  They'd ask the suspect to spell something out loud, and catch them up when they pronounced Z as Zed. He had erased everything British from his speech while a teenager, then cleared out his Canadian "eh" and "hoose" in his twenties, but this one always tripped him up.  

Abecedarium to color: Y

Click here for a full-size page
 to print out and color in.   

The letters on the Y page span at least a thousand years, from the Book of Kells to Art Nouveau.  Each one has had its own moment, with its own special materials and colors and context.  
  
The Celtic Y I have colored in here is adapted from an upside-down A, with coils added along its ends and its central join. You can keep an eye out for letters that can take on a new identity with a simple flip or rotation.   

An extra X

Click here for a high-res, 

full-page printable to color in.

To help you copy the early Renaissance colors of this X, I have outlined it in the reddish-brown color of the original.  Many illuminators used to dilute their outline inks to keep them from overwhelming the solid color within. 

I've given you a version in black, too, so you can try a variety of ways to combine outlines and colors.       

Abecedary to color: X

Click here for a high-res, 

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