Greetings from Las Vegas. Thank you to the admin in charge of approvals, I appreciate being added to the forum.
A "short" about me: I've dabbled in many different art mediums over the decades of my life. Acrylic paints, airbrush, pencil, pen, 3D graphics, 2D graphics (though those two tend to go hand-in-hand), music, silversmithing, lapidary, writing (vignettes and short stories), and briefly in high school: writing (as in Calligraphy). No, I'm not a prodigy of some sort, it's nothing so glamorous. I just never seem to be able to stick to one thing.
I believe personally that Calligraphy is different this time around (the famous "it'll be different this time!"
). The reason I say this is that normally I tend to wear myself down with an art medium, getting caught up in hyper-criticism of my own work. I eventually give up because I am displeased with results. With calligraphy however, while the past few days that I've been practicing with my oblique pen have had some hiccups that were due to bad ink, for the first time in my life I have looked at my practice stuff and *liked* it. That critical inner monologue is silent. That's something I've never experienced before. Sure, the lines are perhaps wobbly, and my loops are not all the same size and width, but at the bare minimum, I know I can take the envelope for a birthday card and write the recipients name well enough to be both ledgeble and pleasing to the eyes.
I found this forum because I am aware that I still have a lot to learn. I found this forum specifically while looking for websites that have examples of flourishes, and seeing a section specifically about copperplate caught my attention. Personally I really enjoy the style of writing that is built off of that, but seeing that it has a sort of rule set for how to write that way also attracts me to it.
I certainly have some questions to start with, but need to spend some time looking at what is already here.
