Drills drills drills

[Os]

Hi, everyone! My semester has recently finished, so I've finally found the time to start pointed pen calligraphy I asked my aunt in the US to buy me a copy of Dick Jackson's Copperplate Calligraphy, but I'll be receiving it after Christmas, so I'm really glad that there are a lot of online resources here in the forum ^V^

After going through 10 copies each of worksheets 1 and 2, I've decided to try taking on an entire page. The drills below are mostly from worksheet 1 ^v^

As you can see, I failed to square the tops of almost everything. I manually square my tops after doing my drills, and I guess my fingers couldn't handle it anymore haha.

Anyway, I've been having a hard time deciding the width of my fundamental oval. Just how wide is wide? I've noticed from master penmen that the width of their ovals vary from wide to quite narrow.


Your critique is very much appreciated!

p.s. i know it looks very cluttered, but i wanted to save on paper HAHAHAHA. (oh the struggle of a student allowance)

Tools are
nib: Tachikawa G
ink: Shin han Pass in Opera, Nicker Gouache in Red Violet (found this a bit too thick so I switched back to Opera), Sumi Ink
paper: PaperOne 100 gsm (it's a local brand, but it's absolutely great for practice!)
holder: Speedball Oblique holder
worksheet/guidelines from IAMPETH

[prasad]

HI Camille,
First off,  great that you have the patience to fill pages with shapes and drills.  This will pay huge huge dividends.  Trust me

Just repeating the advice I got about the same questions you asked.

Focus on one thing at a time.  If you are working on ovals, focus on that.  Keep the other stuff ,like squaring off tops, in the back of your mind,  but focus diligently on the Oval shape.

Once you are comfortable (it is never perfect ) move on to the next point.

Width of letters in this style is typically ½ the x-height.  But like you rightly pointed out, the Ovals vary with Masters.  The "o" width will be half the x-height.  But the width of the oval in "a", "d", "g", "q" will be less with some masters as the whole letter, including the vertical downstroke is considered into the ½ of x-height.

Dr.Vitolo, in his tutorials mentions this saying that he does not like this idea.  He prefers to keep all ovals the same width be it in the "o" or the "a" 

So, it's entirely upto you, as to what feels right for you.  In the beginning it may be easier to maintain the same width for all, as getting the oval shape is hard enough.


TO maintain consistent widths, I used guidelines with slants drawn in at ½ the x-height.  SO 8mm x height had slants every 4mm.  This helped me a lot.  You can get the details on this thread (Reply #4)
http://theflourishforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=3322.msg45957#msg45957

Hope this helps
Happy writing
-Prasad

[Os]

Thanks for the useful tip and the link to the guidelines, Prasad! I've been watching Dr. Vitolo's videos as well, so I might adopt his habit of keeping oval widths consistent with a, d, etc. ^V^

Ever since finishing this worksheet, I've started another one, but this time, they're all fundamental ovals.

[randy2]

Camille
Try the dollor store they sell a pad called (realimages sketch pad) has a green cover.. I tried it on a lurch and is as good as clareforme Bristol I'm not kidding.... I use all the recommended papers but have recently switched to this because I can fly away and toss.
It's light weight so you can put a guide line under and see it without a light bar and for a buck for fifty pages its perfect for any one.
Give it a try for less than a cup of coffee you will be able to practice without cramming letters etc. your beginning habits are so vitally important.
Hope this helps...I was a student once and had study problems in college. Turns out, my counselors discovered I was trying to save paper as my sole problem. They made me wod up and throw away 100 sheets of paper it was hard as hell because I was drilled to be thrifty as a kid. Ha ha.

[Os]

Hi, Randy! Thanks for the heads up, unfortunately, I don't think we have that in the Philippines PaperOne is actually quite cheap (converted to USD, it's less that 9$ for 50 sheets of pure goodness) for its quality. I guess the thrifty kid in me just wanted to get the best out of my money haha. Anyway, a popular calligrapher here in the Philippines recently launched a variety of calligraphy pads. And the prices aren't too bad! They range from around 3$ to 4$ (the cheapest if 50 pages, 100 gsm of lined calligraphy paper). I'll check it out soon as I finish my pack of PaperOnes