86: Split Swash Capitals

Similar to yesterday's alphabet, these Split Swash Capitals are formed with a split nib.  Sometimes called a "scroll pen," it outlines each stroke, and necessitates very precise joining of separate strokes and swashes.  

You can also make a split calligraphy marker by taking a notch out of the nib with a very sharp knife.  It's much easier to write with, and will let you try these out without difficulty.  

You can fill the outlined strokes with color.  

Preview of tomorrow's alphabet.  

85: Swash capitals

These Swash Capitals are written with a relatively wide pen, adding heft to their strokes and forcing them to stay simple.  Eliminating the vertical backbone of B, for instance, helps focus attention on the graceful curve at the left.  Note the precise corner joins in K and M, in contrast to the open air in R and D.  

These capitals come from Capitals for Calligraphy, now available from used-book dealers, which I wrote during a period when my letters were mostly heavier than they are now.  Not sure why.  

Like many decorated capitals, these do not combine well to spell out whole words.    

84: Plain Gothic

Revisiting yet another version of Gothic is an excuse to let me give you a very inspiring little example of how it was used in its heyday.  The manuscript page here is really small, witness to the way Plain Gothic letters accommodate crowding.  

The lettered and illuminated area is 6 centimeters square, making the letters about 2 millimeters tall.  

83: Cut

You can make lively, forceful, eye-catching letters with paper scraps, scissors, and glue.  You use paper to make the background, not the letters.  Here, with Cut, are white letters made by separating pieces of squares.  

We will come back to cut paper several more times.

82: Fat Shadow

This alphabet is easy and fun.  Unlike previous alphabets that suggest an invisible edge by presenting a shadow that seems to define a third dimension, Fat Shadow just drops a gray shadow, as though the letters were floating like a glider over flat ground.  

You can add a drop shadow to ANY letter.  

81 Lower Kingdom

Outsiders who learn to write Chinese calligraphy are often enchanted to find that many characters, or parts of characters, look like alphabet letters.  If you put them together into words, you will add Asian flavor to your calligraphy while you mystify your Chinese readers, who just don't see their own characters as letters.  

I've named this alphabet Lower Kingdom.  We'll pick up the capitals from Upper Kingdom later in the year.  Enjoy!  

Here is an alphabet of lower-case look-alikes.  

Alphabet texture project

Whenever you write letters, you create a visual texture that the reader enjoys along with the meaning of the words. After all, the words text, texture, technique, and textile all come from the same linguistic root.  
Like many calligraphers, I like to experiment with abstract textures, like this sampling of repeated Roman alphabet letters.  

Roman letters, each so individualistic, create more varied textures than other, more uniform alphabets.  I and J share one pane to help the design fit into a 5 x 5 rectangle.