Calligraphy Layouts and Formatting.

[The.SardaarJi]

Hello,

Good morning .

I am posting my yesterday's work. In the below work, I have tried to do the following.

• I used the Guideline , to keep consistency in slant ness
• I have tried to keep *branching* from middle on strokes.
• Mentioning of Source of quote or name of Author
• Highlighting of main words, 
• Tried to use the colors according the harmony  / essence of the quote.
• Writing my name using Pencil.
• Writing author name using different and small nib/pen
• Tried to write in the center of the page, so that I can have approx white space around the quote.

I have tried to applied the suggestion , so kindly let me know how it comes out.

Wishing you guys a great day ahead,

Regards
Aman

[jeanwilson]

Your thumbnails look great.
The next step is to do them a little *tighter.*
Be more specific about which style of lettering you will use and how the exact words will work together.
Choose one or two of the layouts that you like best.
Remember to define your picture plane - square, portrait or landscape.

Yes, there are some lessons on how to approach the basics of layouts.
I probably have something from my own teaching handouts that i can post.
Yes, we can cover the elements and principles of design.
Elements are the basic building blocks, line, shape, color
Principles are concepts/tools for how you work with the elements. texture, scale, contrast, etc

I do computer thumbnails in Word using fonts that look like the various styles of calligraphy.
There is a feature called WordArt where you can pull out a word and morph it into different sizes and shapes.
Depending on which version of Word you have, there all kinds of ways to arrange the elements.
I imagine there are even more options if you work with a Mac.
I have both. But I started with PC, so have not taken time to relearn thumbnail technique in Mac.
Maybe some of the Mac people will add to the discussion.
I could make some samples - if I forget - remind me.

Even if you do not frame your final work and hang it on the wall, it is very helpful to treat your practice work as though you were going to frame it and at the very least, have a line that shows where the mat would be.

In your search for ink, have you heard about walnut ink crystals?
Many of us are very fond of walnut ink.

Sheila's book is under copyright and it would not be OK for anyone to copy it and post it anywhere. However, there is a lot of information that is basic information that can be found on other websites. Whenever I studied with Sheila or any of the other rock stars, and heard their lessons, I seldom heard brand new information. I was always thinking, "Oh, yes. That is the same information that I remember from college." But, it was very helpful to hear the lessons again and each teacher had their own way of showing how they use the design tools to make decisions and resolve problems.

As I keep saying, all of this information is pretty standard. It's like cooking. All the ingredients are at the grocery store. All the recipes are in the books. We have pots and pans and a stove. Surely we should be able to cook fantastic meals. What makes the greatest cooks so great? They are obsessed with learning. They spend a lot of time mastering the basics. They do not expect to take one lesson or try a recipe once and have it be perfect. They realize that there are many basics to learn and they all fit together. It is not a linear form of learning. You have to integrate many different things.

Picture plane is a basic building block.
More to follow.

[brd4790]

Jean, thanks so much for these helpful posts. I like the chef analogy... that's a down to earth was to put self taught endeavors into perspective... so right now in my caligraphy journey it's like I'm learning to use the microwave  .  I'm also anxiously awaiting the Shelia Waters book you recommended.

[The.SardaarJi]

Hello @brd4790 ,

Have you ordered the book? if yes, then how much it did cost you ?

Regards
Aman

Jean, thanks so much for these helpful posts. I like the chef analogy... that's a down to earth was to put self taught endeavors into perspective... so right now in my caligraphy journey it's like I'm learning to use the microwave  .  I'm also anxiously awaiting the Shelia Waters book you recommended.

[The.SardaarJi]

Hello @jeanwilson  ,

Greetings of the day and thanks a lot for replying.

Sorry, if i have forget to mention,, these thumbnails are just chosen randomly from internet, to show if I have got the concept of *thubmnails* right. I am going to create few thumbnails and will share them soon. I will try to create thumbnails according to my italic style of calligraphy.

I have tried to search and read about *picture plane*, and it looked like a *rocket science* to me, and i was puzzled while reading this concept.I think it's about the "When someone looks in your image, when they see things first" etc?


I can do this, I can choose shape of the paper to be - square, portrait or landscape.? Is that right ? or ? we are talking about, writing calligraphy stuff in , either square, portrait or landscape.... I have tried to create an example, kindly have a look to the attached Plane.png.

I am eagerly waiting for the lessons to be post by you . Thanks for explaining, I can understand the terms, Elements and Principles.

I do use PC, not MAC, and to be honest, I am quite good with Microsoft Office applications, the reason is in an IT guys and works in IT industry and we play with Microsoft applications a lot. I used WordArt a lot of times, but never for thumbnails. It would be great if you post some examples, they will help me in the learning the concepts and sure, i will remind you again about it.

Thanks for your wise words ,, I will keep practice as it gonna be my final work, and will try to add mat lines to the white paper sheet.

I have checked but it seems Walnut inks crystals are not available in India .

Thanks, It seems that I need to purchase the book. I may need to find some who is either coming to India from USA, to can ship to me from USA.  I checked the price of book in India, which i a-way-to-high, i checked the price of book on inkpapernart.com, the price of book is a little high but the shipping charges are same as the cost of book ....

Right, i need to find those lessons and then try to work on them,,, but first i need to know what i need to find ., that might take some time,as i may need to take one step at a time as suggested... You are lucky that you get managed to work with all of the rock-stars of Calligraphy


Awesome example of Chef!!!! I am ready to learn basic again, thanks a lot for guiding me and mentoring me.

Now kindly guide me, what shall be the first step

thanks a ton.

Wishing you a great day ahead.

Regards
Aman

Your thumbnails look great.
The next step is to do them a little *tighter.*
Be more specific about which style of lettering you will use and how the exact words will work together.
Choose one or two of the layouts that you like best.
Remember to define your picture plane - square, portrait or landscape.

Yes, there are some lessons on how to approach the basics of layouts.
I probably have something from my own teaching handouts that i can post.
Yes, we can cover the elements and principles of design.
Elements are the basic building blocks, line, shape, color
Principles are concepts/tools for how you work with the elements. texture, scale, contrast, etc

I do computer thumbnails in Word using fonts that look like the various styles of calligraphy.
There is a feature called WordArt where you can pull out a word and morph it into different sizes and shapes.
Depending on which version of Word you have, there all kinds of ways to arrange the elements.
I imagine there are even more options if you work with a Mac.
I have both. But I started with PC, so have not taken time to relearn thumbnail technique in Mac.
Maybe some of the Mac people will add to the discussion.
I could make some samples - if I forget - remind me.

Even if you do not frame your final work and hang it on the wall, it is very helpful to treat your practice work as though you were going to frame it and at the very least, have a line that shows where the mat would be.

In your search for ink, have you heard about walnut ink crystals?
Many of us are very fond of walnut ink.

Sheila's book is under copyright and it would not be OK for anyone to copy it and post it anywhere. However, there is a lot of information that is basic information that can be found on other websites. Whenever I studied with Sheila or any of the other rock stars, and heard their lessons, I seldom heard brand new information. I was always thinking, "Oh, yes. That is the same information that I remember from college." But, it was very helpful to hear the lessons again and each teacher had their own way of showing how they use the design tools to make decisions and resolve problems.

As I keep saying, all of this information is pretty standard. It's like cooking. All the ingredients are at the grocery store. All the recipes are in the books. We have pots and pans and a stove. Surely we should be able to cook fantastic meals. What makes the greatest cooks so great? They are obsessed with learning. They spend a lot of time mastering the basics. They do not expect to take one lesson or try a recipe once and have it be perfect. They realize that there are many basics to learn and they all fit together. It is not a linear form of learning. You have to integrate many different things.

Picture plane is a basic building block.
More to follow.

[jeanwilson]

I agree, the definition of the picture plane can be confusing.
Plus, I have confused you about the matting and framing of the artwork.
Let's put matting and framing aside for right now and just talk about cropping.
Google -- cropping L  -- and you will see images of two L shaped pieces of metal, plastic or card stock that are used to crop a photograph.
Then, find some card stock or heavy paper and make yourself two cropping Ls.
There are several places to read about how photographers approach cropping.
It is handy to have ruler markings along the edge which can be very lightly drawn.

The rectangle that the cropping Ls form is the picture plane.
Does that make sense?

You can define or draw the picture plane and then put your lettering inside that square or rectangle.
or
You can arrange your lettering, figure out your layout - and then - define, or decide on where the picture plane will be.
or
you can do a combination of those two options.

If you know you are posting on IG, then you will be thinking of a square format, but you do not have to put the square on the page before you start. You can be thinking of a square and then figure out the cropping after you are pleased with the layout.

Please let me know if this makes more sense.

[The.SardaarJi]

Dear @jeanwilson ,

Good morning. and thanks for the reply.

 I have checked the good about "Cropping L" and not i have a quite an idea about it.

By using these 2 L shape, we can define what we want to display in a image.  I am going to create "Cropping L" by this weekend and will use it.

I think. I can use it like this... write on a paper first then use it for cropping.....


I have tried making some rectangle and square calligrapy which i am posting after this post, kindly please suggest if i am doing things in a right way now.


Thanks a lot for your help.

Regards
Aman

I agree, the definition of the picture plane can be confusing.
Plus, I have confused you about the matting and framing of the artwork.
Let's put matting and framing aside for right now and just talk about cropping.
Google -- cropping L  -- and you will see images of two L shaped pieces of metal, plastic or card stock that are used to crop a photograph.
Then, find some card stock or heavy paper and make yourself two cropping Ls.
There are several places to read about how photographers approach cropping.
It is handy to have ruler markings along the edge which can be very lightly drawn.

The rectangle that the cropping Ls form is the picture plane.
Does that make sense?

You can define or draw the picture plane and then put your lettering inside that square or rectangle.
or
You can arrange your lettering, figure out your layout - and then - define, or decide on where the picture plane will be.
or
you can do a combination of those two options.

If you know you are posting on IG, then you will be thinking of a square format, but you do not have to put the square on the page before you start. You can be thinking of a square and then figure out the cropping after you are pleased with the layout.

Please let me know if this makes more sense.

[The.SardaarJi]

Hello Good morning,

Thanks a lot for guiding me and helping to to learn more about Calligraphy's concepts.

I have tried to working on all the suggestion those are given to me, and below is the updated (yesterday's work ) on those suggestions which I have tried to follow religiously.

What I have tried.

• Trying to create a Frame line.
• Trying to create a MAT lines
• Writing my name with Pencil
• Trying to create Thumbnail about the quote.
• Tried to write in proper Square  or proper rectangle paper.
• Trying to keep slantness

Issues faced so far.

• INK is causing lots of trouble.
• Struggling with layouts.
• Not much ideas coming to mind when I tried to create thumbnails.
• Sometime I messed up with spacing

I am still working on the areas of Issues . 

Wishing you guys  a great day ahead.

Regards
Aman

[jeanwilson]

It is great to see how eager you are to learn more about layouts and design. Yesterday I had a visit from someone who mentioned that she really needed some lessons in design and wished that I was active in my regular teaching schedule. I told her that I would pull out all my teaching materials and figure out a way to post the lessons online. I will figure out a way to put all the tips in a thread on FF - but it might take me a while to get everything organized. I think it will make a lot more sense for you to have some order to the process. In the meantime, you could focus on just the lettering. I'll put those comments in a different post.

One question:
Do you have a final product in mind? Do you know why you were drawn to calligraphy? Some people just want to improve their penmanship. Others just want to post on IG. Some like to make greeting cards. Others want to create finished, framed artwork. Some want to do all of those things. It is helpful to know if you have a particular goal or if you are still just exploring your options. 

[ash0kgiri]

Hi Jean,

It would be really great to have your teaching material on this forum. Waiting forward to them.

- Ashok

[The.SardaarJi]

Hello @jeanwilson ,

Thanks a lot for your kind words and reply.

I do believe that in my calligraphy , the main area which need improvement most is, "Layout and Design" section, and I am really want to improve it.I am really thankful to you to guide me in this, there is a famous saying in India, that " When the student is ready, the teacher will appear" , might me that's why you come as a teacher for me .

Your training material will be great help to everyone and specially me as I am not good in this section, yet. So you got one more pupil who need to learn same things, great . I am sure that will going to help all of us a lot. Kindly let me know if I can help you in any way to organize your stuff.


Why I was drawn to calligraphy ? I have the answer , but it's long and kind of sad story which I may share some other day. {too much to type.. }:) . I want to framed my finished works, like a really awesome final pieces of quotes, poems, essays... may be one day I can sell my work online. That's is may be my goal is.

Thanks again.
Regards
Aman

It is great to see how eager you are to learn more about layouts and design. Yesterday I had a visit from someone who mentioned that she really needed some lessons in design and wished that I was active in my regular teaching schedule. I told her that I would pull out all my teaching materials and figure out a way to post the lessons online. I will figure out a way to put all the tips in a thread on FF - but it might take me a while to get everything organized. I think it will make a lot more sense for you to have some order to the process. In the meantime, you could focus on just the lettering. I'll put those comments in a different post.

One question:
Do you have a final product in mind? Do you know why you were drawn to calligraphy? Some people just want to improve their penmanship. Others just want to post on IG. Some like to make greeting cards. Others want to create finished, framed artwork. Some want to do all of those things. It is helpful to know if you have a particular goal or if you are still just exploring your options.

[jeanwilson]

It occurred to me that there might be some good lessons on design principles online. If you Google -principles of design- several pop up. I do not have time to look at all of them. Some are a simple list. One of them (linked below) goes into quite a bit of detail - there are links at the end of the elements that apply each of the principles to that element. So, it might be a good one for people who are curious to do some reading right now. Of course, none of the examples are lettering, so it is not the ideal site for this group. But, I think I will use it as an outline and find lettering examples to correspond to each to the examples.

I will also figure out some lessons in case people want actual lessons. IMHO the value of taking a college level class is that you have an investment in that you have paid for the class and you complete the assignments because you are working towards a degree. In my classes, the students were taking classes for their own enjoyment and often times they would not complete the assignments because they had other priorities. Since they were not working towards a degree or even a grade, I never wanted them to feel bad about not doing the assignments. I always support students who are trying to squeeze art into a busy schedule because art can be so therapeutic and maybe down the road they will find the time to do the assignments. Those students who made time to complete assignments tended to make a little more progress than the others, but not always. One student hardly ever did any work during the class. After I had coaxed her one too many times, she explained that she just needed to get out of the house once a week and she enjoyed being there. So, after that I just let her enjoy the company. It wasn't my business to pressure her and I was glad she found a little oasis.

One of my assignments is to take one quote and do it every day for a month. At first, students are stumped because they can't believe they can come up with 30 different ideas. But, by going through the list of elements and principles, they learn that there are an exponential number of ideas.

I have no idea how long it will take me to find a good example to correspond to each example at the website, but I am looking forward to my own assignment of finding them.....

https://www.johnlovett.com/design-overview

I have not read every single bit of information on the site and there may be material that I would not agree with. As I look for examples, i will also mention any places where I think it might be worthwhile to consider an alternative viewpoint. He does not have *type or letters* as an element. In some lists of elements, you see type or letters included because they can be an element of a piece of art.
You see many different variations in the lists of elements and principles.
If anyone is confused about the concept of elements and principles, let me know and I can clarify.

[The.SardaarJi]

Hello @jeanwilson

Greetings of the day, and apologies for replying late.

Thanks for sharing the link and I need to take printout of that, . some things are easy to understand and some are not, may be once I have read them few time they make start making sense to me.

you are nice towards your student's and I think Calligraphy is an  escape for most of us to do some actual work rather then spending the rest of life either on laptop or on mobile. .

I love your assignment, writing the same quote again and again for 30 days in a awesome idea... i may try to do this too.

Thanks again for your time and efforts, and your kindness.

Regards
Aman