The art of calligraphy- David Harris

[chiarag]

A comprehensive guide explaining everything you need to know to master the skills and techniques of beautiful writing.
Detailed practical instructions and easy-to-follow examples.

After long waiting, It has finally arrived and I have just fallen in love with it!

[Estefa]

I love that too!

[Ergative]

I learned a huge amount from that book, but I must say that its copperplate section is not at all in line with the classic Lupfer/Zanerian college exemplars that so many of us use.

[AndyT]

Well, no - Harris draws on the English Roundhand tradition, and seems to have made an effort to present an alphabet which is optimal for writing with a pen rather than engraving.  Hence the unsquared tops and bottoms, for instance.  It's more like a late 17th / early 18th century hand, and none the worse for that in my opinion.

[ericp]

I saw it at the library today, it looks really great.  Let us know more as you dig in.

[Blotbot]

Yes, I like this book too.  I enjoy his discussion of the historical background of each hand, and the layout with historic examples is very attractive.

[Ken Fraser]

Well, no - Harris draws on the English Roundhand tradition, and seems to have made an effort to present an alphabet which is optimal for writing with a pen rather than engraving.  Hence the unsquared tops and bottoms, for instance.  It's more like a late 17th / early 18th century hand, and none the worse for that in my opinion.

In this book, "The Art of Calligraphy " 1995, David Harris show this script as "Copperplate" which is, as you described it, with unsquared tops and bottoms.
 
In his later book "The Calligrapher's Bible" 2003, he shows this same script as "Copperplate, Italian Hand". He then shows a second script as "Copperplate, English Roundhand" which is more traditional with squared-off tops and bottoms (which, BTW I greatly prefer.) However, there is a serious problem with the ductus he applies to this latter script as it would be impossible to write as indicated.
Many upstrokes are shown as shaded which (as anyone who has attempted to write with a flexible nib will tell you), is impossible. Beginners will be totally frustrated if they try to follow these directions.

This is a great pity as otherwise "The Calligrapher's Bible" has many good things in it with good exemplars.

Ken

[AndyT]

Well ain't that odd?  I hadn't seen the 2003 book before, but having looked it up the instructional material is frankly bizarre.  The photographs especially.  This is particularly surprising as Mr Harris can clearly turn his hand to copperplate quite nicely, thank you, so perhaps it's the publisher's art department which is to blame.  To be honest I hadn't looked closely at the "Art of Calligraphy" copperplate section because the exemplar didn't appeal to me much, but some of the same objections apply there, too.

There's no reason not to use the exemplar if you like that sort of thing of course - as i said before it looks quite practical, but there's a nasty surprise lurking for anyone closely following the instructions as soon as they get to "b".

[RD5]

I know this book is well liked, and I can see why. There is plenty to like. but I have a few issues with it.

1. It gives the impression that it has more scripts than it does, for example, it lists a chapter on Schwabacher and Frakur, but only instructions for the later. It doesn't even combine the two styles on one page, like with uncial and artificial uncial.

2. It doesn't have the long S for most scripts, even though it is in the back.

3. Sometimes, the technical descriptions leave me wondering how to execute a stroke.