Hello
@jeanwilson A very good morning , and thanks for your detailed reply.
Thanks for suggesting about graph paper, I never saw anyone using Graph paper for Italic , I will give it a try and will post the result soon.
Thumbnails, option looking good to me, and I can understand the process now, thanks a lot for explaining it in details, now the another question arise ( sorry), if some one is not aware from *different kind* of layouts, then he can't make any? right? So there have to be some *foundation * principles for it.
Thumbnails on computer ? By any chance you have any *sampler* of computer generated thumbnails? I am good in computers, I would like to give it a try, and just curious which software you do use to create thumbnails in computer.
For this week's calligraphy work, I will try to generate some *Thumbnails* and will see if I can come out with anything.
I never managed to create a *final piece* yet, but I am hoping I will do it soon, once I got everything right. Will frame it and hang in on the wall of my drawing room.
While practicing , i messed up with the 2-3 paper anyway, that make me warm, like a warm exercise. I am still struggling with Inks and paper, and i think that's a topic for some another day.
The more you are mentioning *Sheila* the more eager I am getting a hands on her book, does anyone have her book in PDF format? that will be great help to me.I will ask my online friends too, and will see if anyone have hold of it.
I have found this pic over internet, and this is the example of *Thumbnail* right ?
Thanks a lot for the reply.
Have a nice day.
Regards
Aman
Congratulations for sticking with it and following suggestions that were a bit *sketchy* - which left out details that would have been helpful.
I like to do my first set of pencil sketches on graph paper and experiment with every possible way to arrange the words. Stack them in a tall narrow layout, break them in to as few lines as possible for a wide layout, break the words by grammatical phrasing, pull out important words and feature them larger. Note in each layout where your ascenders and descenders may run in to each other. Flush left, flush right, centered, random, etc...
This set of pencil sketches is often called *thumbnail* because you do them smaller than what the final piece will be. Exploring every possible way of arranging the words is a good exercise and once you learn how to do it, you enjoy the process because you frequently are surprised by which option is your favorite. When people start with just one idea about how to arrange the words, they are missing out on all kinds of options that they might like better.
Once you have the thumbnail that you like, enlarge it to the size that will be closer to the finished piece. The question about how to get the spacing right when you are using a pencil and will be switching to a broad edge is a good question. I can think of two ways to address this. The first is by doing a double stroke or even triple stroke on the wide strokes to approximate the width. Or, it is possible to write a monoline italic and see each stroke as if it is the skeleton within a wider stroke - so you are leaving the extra space and can visualize how the strokes will be wider.
Some people are really good at doing the thumbnails on a computer. If I get a rush job, I frequently do layouts on the computer using fonts that approximate my styles of lettering and get an approval from the client using the font.
Once you are happy with your pencil sketches at the final size, you switch to ink (on layout paper) and see how it looks. Again, most people would be surprised at how many versions some scribes are willing to make to arrive at the final layout. In her book, Sheila states that she is not adverse to doing the *final* more than once or even more than twice. She states that the extras are in her portfolio. I know it is common for students to groan when they make a mistake and they dread the thought of starting over. Personally, it seldom (if ever) bothers me to have to start over. It always takes me a while to get warmed up and I am happy to have as many pieces as possible in the portfolio to show clients their options. If I have time and there will be a decorative element on the piece, I might start 3 pieces to have backups so that I can be a little freer with the decorative element. I can do the first one in *safe* mode. And assuming it is fine, I can then switch to something a little riskier - that might be better. Or, in the case of the *happy accident* if you are working on three of the same piece and you have an oops, you might discover a really cool fix - so the accident truly is a happy accident.
Smearing when you erase your pencil lines---- I like to let things dry overnight before I erase. Sometimes, there will be smearing no matter what - so learning how to avoid smears is a matter of learning about your inks and papers and only using the ones that you have thoroughly tested. And even then...be prepared for surprises.
---- on the other hand------
The details above about how to approach layouts is one end of the spectrum. It is detailed oriented and takes time. If it sounds tedious and boring, don't worry. There are other ways to approach design that are more streamlined. I don't want to be the only person offering suggestions. Maybe other people will add to the conversation.