Where I stand after about 1 month

[Taylorgillis]

Hey all! So with the New Year I challenged myself to practice every day for a year and chart my progress on a blog and on Instagram. It's day 26, and I thought I would put up some images to see if anyone had any feedback on how it's looking so far, what can be improved, and where to go from here.

I practiced off and on for about two months last year using Eleanor Winters book, but this is the longest period of time that I've consistently practiced. I switched to Dick Jacksons book this time around.

I think what I'm having the most consistent trouble with is maintaining consistent slant and consistently hitting the top and bottom lines. Word pacing and letter spacing could also use some work. As well as squaring off my strokes... Lots of stuff!

When I sit down to practice, I'm choosing quotes and phrases and just writing them out for a half hour to an hour a night. I'm seeing slight improvement, but I'm wondering if there is a more organized method of practice that might be more helpful.

First image is from Jan 1st, second image is from tonight. Thanks guys!

[Bianca M]

Wow, that is really excellent progress!  You've identified your improvement spots already, so no critique here- just wanted to give you a virtual high five and compliment you on a job well done. 

[Andrew H]

Hey Taylor, thanks for sharing your progress!

Just writing out phrases, if that's the only practice you do, will give only minimal, gradual improvements if your goal is to write accurate script. Find an exemplar(s) that you want to follow and spend the first half of your practice session drilling the basic forms, finding the weaknesses in your script and working to improve these. Good Copperplate script comes from uniformity of slant, spacing and shade, and these can only be achieved through careful practice and self-critique.

Hope that helps, if you keep up the daily practice routine you'll be amazed how quickly you progress! 

[Loren Chestnut]

Looks great!! Especially considering that it's only been 1 month. As Andrew mentioned, daily drill sessions will definitely help with the consistency of your slants, etc. (I've been trying to be more intentional with getting my drill time in myself) 

[Taylorgillis]

Whoops, don't know why my pictures came up sideways! Thanks for the feedback.

Regarding drills, I've been practicing under turns, over turns, full pressure slanted strokes, ovals, compound curves, and loops. Not to sound naive - are those pretty much the basic drills to keep practicing govern and over again? Any other drills that would be helpful?

I'm realizing this must've been answered a million times in this forum, but as I was typing I just thought I'd ask.

Thanks again, guys!

[Andrew H]

Regarding drills, I've been practicing under turns, over turns, full pressure slanted strokes, ovals, compound curves, and loops. Not to sound naive - are those pretty much the basic drills to keep practicing govern and over again? Any other drills that would be helpful?

Those are the main strokes to begin with, but it depends what you mean by practicing. To really improve you have to be comparing your drill strokes with an exemplar and critiquing your own work by finding the places where it falls short of the exemplar and working on improving those.

Many people think practice means simply repeating a stroke, but without an external reference or a standard to aspire to this will just reinforce your mistakes.

[Taylorgillis]

Thanks Andrew. Its a good reminder that its not just about putting in the time, but being smart about the time you're putting in!

[papertrails]

Hi Taylorgillis!
You're making wonderful progress!

One of the ways I like to practice when learning a new style (besides going over the basic letterforms) is to practice a letter at a time. I will connect it to the rest of the alphabet, for example: If I'm practicing the letter 'i', I would write out 'ia, ib, ic....iz and ai, bi, ci....zi' It helps me identify difficult connections, so I can work on those separately.

Hope that helps!