Sunflowers

[Erica McPhee]

This is from an exchange I participated in for the Nashville Calligraphers Guild. I love having a theme to brainstorm ideas. The painting was done with watercolor and scanned in. The calligraphy was ProCreate.

[TeresaS]

Very nice!

[Zivio]

Very much enjoying your Spencerian in this!  This isn't the first time I'd seen you mention "Procreate" but the first time I decided to look up what it is!  ... maybe in another life for me!   

[Erica McPhee]

Thank you @TeresaS and @Zivio.

Yes, Procreate is great fun! It is kind of cheating in my mind because it behaves differently than pen and ink. There is no ink or nib to fuss about. On the other hand, it can be quite challenging to get the Apple Pencil to cooperate. But I love it because it allows great free whole arm movement. :-)

[Zivio]

Thank you @TeresaS and @Zivio.

Yes, Procreate is great fun! It is kind of cheating in my mind because it behaves differently than pen and ink. There is no ink or nib to fuss about. On the other hand, it can be quite challenging to get the Apple Pencil to cooperate ...

Well, interesting you say cheating, because that was the first involuntary thought in my head!

But, yes, your challenging comment also rings very true.  I had watched a YouTube video of someone describing that many users become discouraged when they see videos and end products of "shaded"/thin-thick lines and are unable to produce them.  It occurs to me that no, Procreate will not automatically do that for you.  A person still must learn many of the same movements or rudimentary fundamentals of using pointed pen (or other tools) to do so.  It is clear to me that your success with the software isn't cheating at all, but could only happen because of your experience and skill in calligraphy.

[GaryL]

Hi Erica,

I would dearly love to see your sunflowers but am I the only one who cannot open the image ?
Keeping my fingers crossed.

Gary

[Erica McPhee]

Thank you Karl! @Zivio

The other thing about ProCreate calligraphy is that it lacks the “depth” of the human hand. This can be good in that it has a fluidity that can rarely be accomplished by hand - graceful lines sail across the tablet, without shakiness or ink “glitches.” While this can be beautiful it feels to me like calligraphy that has been vectorized in Illustrator - it lacks the “human” quality and inherits the “machine” feel of a type font.

On the other hand, I experience a love/hate relationship with it because it does provide reliable practice of letterforms which in turn improves my hand calligraphy. But it also allows the “undo” button and layers which rapidly and succinctly mimics the cut and paste of “paste up” formatting from decades ago within micro-seconds. This doesn’t help me in the long run in terms of completing finished pieces by hand with the exception of repetition of design does help to develop the eye.

See how I go in circles? 

@Gary So sorry you can’t see it. What browser are you using?

[Zivio]

... While this can be beautiful it feels to me like calligraphy that has been vectorized in Illustrator - it lacks the “human” quality and inherits the “machine” feel of a type font.

YES!   Musicians who use digital audio workstations ("DAW") are familiar with a "humanize" feature which helps to introduce that bit of human imperfection to make the music sound more natural. 

@Jean Wilson had asked me a few months ago whether I had seen any real Spencerian script ... that is, ink on paper.  I had not, and she was so kind and generous to mail me a few examples.  This was such an important and helpful thing, since until then I'd only seen online examples! To this @AnasaziWrites and @InkyFingers also have sent me a few notes -- real ink on real paper! 

Those online examples now pale in comparison to the real thing.  And the real thing doesn't even have to be so expertly produced to convey that beauty.  This was so important because I, as many of us probably are, have been so critical of my own efforts. 

[Erica McPhee]

LOVE the graciousness and generosity of our members!

On that note, do Message me your address if you’d like as I would love to send you some snail mail as well.   

[GaryL]

@Gary So sorry you can’t see it. What browser are you using?

I have an iMac and usually have no problem opening photos in Preview. The message I receive is that the file may be damaged or in a format that Preview cannot recognise but I can see that it is a jpg file so that should not be a problem in itself. And I have opened many photos before on the Forum. As no-one else has flagged a problem, it must be just mine. I'll do some research.

Gary

[Erica McPhee]

@Gary  How about this one?

[GaryL]

It was well worth the wait. Thank you Erica.

[Erica McPhee]

LOL! Thanks! I had resized the first one and when I did, I changed the extension which had given me an error message saying it may cause viewing problems. I ignored that given I could see it. So in the end, it was a great learning experience for me that you could not view it.