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Inktober / Day 19 - 2022: PONYTAIL
« on: October 19, 2022, 12:31:43 AM »
Sharing some of my "P" practice. Quitting while ahead ... or tired. Let the brain do its magic while sleeping on it.
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Inktober / Day 18 - 2022: SCRAPE
« on: October 18, 2022, 12:10:00 AM »
Going with French today. Never paid much attention to "R" because the "standard" Spencerian is so similar to "P" and "B". Decided to give it a shot.
4
Open Flourish | General Discussion / Coca-Cola logo
« on: October 16, 2022, 04:47:15 PM »
I'm currently reading The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting, by English novelist Philip Hensher. Not too far along, but find that Mr. Hensher is no lover of Spencerian script and critical of many other things related to handwriting..
In chapter seven he makes the comment that the Coca-Cola logo is rendered in copperplate. This surprised me since I've seen so many references to this logo having been done in Spencerian, by no less than the Coca Cola Company https://www.coca-colacompany.com/au/news/trace-the-130-year-evolution-of-the-coca-cola-logo and even Zillers.com http://zillers.com/learning/spencerian-and-cooperplate/. Yet in this same link on Zillers it is said, "In general terms, Spencerian hands utilize delicately shaded lower-case letters." Yeah, not seeing that in the logo.
When I first discovered Spencerian a few years ago, I'd encountered many online references to this logo, and just decided that, because I was so new to scripts and calligraphy in general, I wasn't able to discern it for myself. But today, I have a hard time reconciling those heavy thicks with very little thin contrast with Spencerian. Even Louis Madarascz and his heavy shading has a lot of thins to balance.
It just seems terribly urban mythological to me, and it's doubtful Myth Busters will ever take this one up, so I submit this poll.
In chapter seven he makes the comment that the Coca-Cola logo is rendered in copperplate. This surprised me since I've seen so many references to this logo having been done in Spencerian, by no less than the Coca Cola Company https://www.coca-colacompany.com/au/news/trace-the-130-year-evolution-of-the-coca-cola-logo and even Zillers.com http://zillers.com/learning/spencerian-and-cooperplate/. Yet in this same link on Zillers it is said, "In general terms, Spencerian hands utilize delicately shaded lower-case letters." Yeah, not seeing that in the logo.
When I first discovered Spencerian a few years ago, I'd encountered many online references to this logo, and just decided that, because I was so new to scripts and calligraphy in general, I wasn't able to discern it for myself. But today, I have a hard time reconciling those heavy thicks with very little thin contrast with Spencerian. Even Louis Madarascz and his heavy shading has a lot of thins to balance.
It just seems terribly urban mythological to me, and it's doubtful Myth Busters will ever take this one up, so I submit this poll.
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Inktober / Day 16 - 2022: FOWL
« on: October 16, 2022, 01:01:22 AM »
Halfway through Inktober - congratulations, all!
Moisture content in sand, like in ink is important … as is keeping writing tools away from dogs. Beach dog found a new toy in my writing stick and would not return it!
Having some fun and challenges playing with new capitals. I have no illusions here, but @Lucie Y turned me on to Paul Antonio’s “angular confinement” which I believe will help a lot, once I get around to making some special guideline sheets. For now, I'm just happy to get some familiarity with the capitals and playing with the new ideas and shapes. Seems like a good beginning -- everyone starts somewhere.
Moisture content in sand, like in ink is important … as is keeping writing tools away from dogs. Beach dog found a new toy in my writing stick and would not return it!
Having some fun and challenges playing with new capitals. I have no illusions here, but @Lucie Y turned me on to Paul Antonio’s “angular confinement” which I believe will help a lot, once I get around to making some special guideline sheets. For now, I'm just happy to get some familiarity with the capitals and playing with the new ideas and shapes. Seems like a good beginning -- everyone starts somewhere.
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Inktober / Day 15 - 2022: ARMADILLO
« on: October 15, 2022, 12:21:38 AM »
Armadillo. The struggle is real. 
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Inktober / Day 14 - 2022: EMPTY
« on: October 14, 2022, 12:20:24 AM »
Today's practice comes via pencil. Trying to wrap my brain, eyes, arm, etc. around those ovals and proportions. And placement of "m" following "E" ... comments or thoughts on best practice here are welcome. Thanks!
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Inktober / Day 13 - 2022: KIND
« on: October 13, 2022, 12:01:37 AM »
Shaky today; as good as it gets. Two kind.
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Inktober / Day 12 - 2022: FORGET
« on: October 12, 2022, 12:10:32 AM »
Inspired by those of you sharing longer contributions, I spent most of practice today writing a short letter/note to my Great Nephew. I did not take time to practice the new "F" below, but will likely revisit it later.
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Inktober / Day 11 - 2022: EAGLE
« on: October 11, 2022, 12:59:34 AM »
On Day 9 @AnasaziWrites led the way with the wonderful picture of the nest in the tea olive from his backyard ... I had hoped to share our backyard Baldies Eddie and Edwina, but without the right equipment, they are difficult to capture. Instead, here's one I snapped when out on a bike ride.
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Inktober / Day 8 - 2022: MATCH
« on: October 08, 2022, 12:46:01 AM »… I love all things Spencerian –
I would like to retract that statement. Or, at least add the amendment: “except the capital letters ‘M’ and ‘N.’”
To be honest, I’ve never been fond of the appearance of the “humped style” ones and the ones with the thin angular lines have proven to be very difficult. I’ve avoided learning and practicing them.
Inktober, however, has motivated me to start putting in some much-needed practice. Maybe I’ll learn to love them after learning to make them.
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Inktober / Day 7 - 2022: TRIP
« on: October 07, 2022, 12:42:03 AM »
I took @Lucie Y's suggestion to use a translation instead of the English word for today's word. This in honor of my late parents and ancestors from Bohemia and to get practice on that rarely used capital "Z". Sure, it's rarely used, but you better have it when you need it, right?
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Inktober / Day 6 - 2022: BOUQUET
« on: October 06, 2022, 12:17:00 AM »
Today’s Sandserian comes from the bay side of our peninsula, so no ocean view this time. A shorebird vouchsafed an extra fine quill, so I sized my usual driftwood sand writing down to a smaller, 50 mm x-height.
“The only rule for Inktober Club is there are no rules for Inktober Club,” or so I wrote earlier. Discovered this is not exactly true. Jake Parker, the one who started it all did include a few simple rules. However, one of the “Frequently Asked Questions” was, “What if I see someone doing Inktober wrong?” Here is the answer:
“There's no Inktober police going around looking to shut people down if they aren't using ink or the prompt list. If you are tempted to call someone out for not doing Inktober the way you think they should be doing it, just keep it to yourself. Use your energy to celebrate people's creativity and expression. Do like your mom taught you:'If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all.'"
So, I’m going with that, and taking these liberties with “BOUQUET” –
(1) Avoiding American pronunciation, and
(2) spelling,
to challenge myself with:
• The dreaded double “o”, which I like to avoid.
• Punctuation – Exclamation point and question mark in particular but also the accent aigu.
• New (to me) capital “B”.
• Capital “Q” I found this one in Michael and Debra Sull’s Learning to Write Spencerian Script and fell in love with it! I’ve not seen one like it elsewhere and curious if anyone else has. I’ll love it even more with practice.
• Sharing my practice attempts page. Inktober has been so great for loosening me up in this respect.
Finally, Crow help me, I often wax prolix in writing ... It occurred to me that the alphabetic distribution of the beginning letters of the Inktober prompt words was limited. For example, Inktober words beginning with “B”, “F” and “S” occur five times each in the list! An even distribution would be one letter for each of the 26 in the alphabet with room for five "extras." "B", "F", and "S" are certainly worthy capitals to work on, but Inktober prompts start with only 14 out of the 26 letters of the alphabet. I considered capitalizing every letter of each prompt, but even one majuscule at a time for me is enough of a trial.
I wondered how the variety of letters would differ by capitalizing, say, only the second or the third letter instead. This resulted in the attached frequency chart. Interestingly, using the second letter covered only 11, and using the third letter resulted in 14 of the 26 letters of the alphabet – just like the beginning letters but a different grouping.
I haven’t yet decided what to do. There is value both in extended practice with a smaller set of majuscules as well as in learning more letters. I’ve also seen that there seem to be certain Spencerian capitals that have a huge amount of variety (“S” comes to mind) and others that get short shrift. I wonder why that is?
All of the above to support an observation someone once made -- I overthink things.
“The only rule for Inktober Club is there are no rules for Inktober Club,” or so I wrote earlier. Discovered this is not exactly true. Jake Parker, the one who started it all did include a few simple rules. However, one of the “Frequently Asked Questions” was, “What if I see someone doing Inktober wrong?” Here is the answer:
“There's no Inktober police going around looking to shut people down if they aren't using ink or the prompt list. If you are tempted to call someone out for not doing Inktober the way you think they should be doing it, just keep it to yourself. Use your energy to celebrate people's creativity and expression. Do like your mom taught you:'If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all.'"
So, I’m going with that, and taking these liberties with “BOUQUET” –
(1) Avoiding American pronunciation, and
(2) spelling,
to challenge myself with:
• The dreaded double “o”, which I like to avoid.
• Punctuation – Exclamation point and question mark in particular but also the accent aigu.
• New (to me) capital “B”.
• Capital “Q” I found this one in Michael and Debra Sull’s Learning to Write Spencerian Script and fell in love with it! I’ve not seen one like it elsewhere and curious if anyone else has. I’ll love it even more with practice.
• Sharing my practice attempts page. Inktober has been so great for loosening me up in this respect.
Finally, Crow help me, I often wax prolix in writing ... It occurred to me that the alphabetic distribution of the beginning letters of the Inktober prompt words was limited. For example, Inktober words beginning with “B”, “F” and “S” occur five times each in the list! An even distribution would be one letter for each of the 26 in the alphabet with room for five "extras." "B", "F", and "S" are certainly worthy capitals to work on, but Inktober prompts start with only 14 out of the 26 letters of the alphabet. I considered capitalizing every letter of each prompt, but even one majuscule at a time for me is enough of a trial.
I wondered how the variety of letters would differ by capitalizing, say, only the second or the third letter instead. This resulted in the attached frequency chart. Interestingly, using the second letter covered only 11, and using the third letter resulted in 14 of the 26 letters of the alphabet – just like the beginning letters but a different grouping.
I haven’t yet decided what to do. There is value both in extended practice with a smaller set of majuscules as well as in learning more letters. I’ve also seen that there seem to be certain Spencerian capitals that have a huge amount of variety (“S” comes to mind) and others that get short shrift. I wonder why that is?
All of the above to support an observation someone once made -- I overthink things.
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