From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V2 #115 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Saturday, June 27 1998 Volume 02 : Number 115 In this issue: [scribes]: (no subject) [scribes]: Assistance with Latin Re: [scribes]: printed text? Re: Re: [scribes]: Calligraphy fonts Re: [scribes]: hands ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 20:42:02 -0400 From: Donald Stewart Subject: [scribes]: (no subject) Greetings Gentle Scribes! I've been lurking on this list for about a week, reading with great interest and learning quite a few things. I'm new to the SCA, and was thrilled to find such a thing as scribes working in the Current Middle Ages. I took a class in calligraphy quite a few years ago and learned good old Chancery Cursive - but it's been a long time since I've done any writing. Now I'm looking forward to getting back into calligraphy and hopefully, illumination too. I was told (or read) recently that the easiest hand to learn is Carolingian Minuscule. Well, I've been practicing, but it's just not clicking with me. I'm going to take the advice some of you have offered and try several different hands until I find one that's most comfortable. Maybe after I master one, learning another won't be so difficult. Hopefully, after I get to the point where I feel my writing isn't too terribly awful, I'll show it to someone and maybe become a scribe myself. In the meantime, I plan to keep practicing, keep up on your postings, and perhaps will see some of you and your work at Pennsic! Sibry de Crayne Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands Kingdom of AEthelmearc (mka Suzanne Stewart, Pittsburgh, PA) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 19:46:48 -0500 From: gevehard@juno.com (Garret C Bitker) Subject: [scribes]: Assistance with Latin Greetings good and talented scribes, I seek assistance from one more knowledgeable than myself, I wish to translate the text of a scroll into latin but have not the ability, would someone be willing to assist me with this project? Please email me if interested at gevehard@juno.com Some urgency is needed with this project to meet the proposed deadline. Thank you for your time and attention. Herr Gevehard von Baden Interim Northshield Signet _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 18:11:31 -0700 From: John Stracke Subject: Re: [scribes]: printed text? Heather Swann wrote: > > I believe that some > > individuals said they use a computer to layout their calligraphy and then > > trace it onto the scroll......you might have asked them.....but we killed them > > for lack of scibal purity :) JimBear > > Not all of them.....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA....! > > *Ahem* > > Er, I meant, why don't you use the computer printout to layout the > calligraphy and then trace it? ;) Because we've now infected her computer (and yours) with the ScribalPurity virus, which focuses the CRT's electron guns to killing intensity if it determines that the user is attempting this dastardly trick. (Of course, this is hard for a computer to figure out; the AI involved takes a lot of CPU time, so that it's very hard to distinguish between a computer infected with ScribalPurity and one that's just crashed. :-) And, if that's not enough, we'll come over and poke you with the fluffy pillows! /=================================================================\ |John Francis Stracke | http://www.thibault.org |S/MIME & HTML OK| |francis@thibault.org |===========================================| |Crosston, Mists, West| Any time somebody has a conditioned | |My LAN, my opinions. | response, they *always* think of Pavlov! | \=================================================================/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 22:45:58 EDT From: Luiseach@aol.com Subject: Re: Re: [scribes]: Calligraphy fonts I started calligraphing (mumble, mutter) years ago, long before I joined the SCA and my first books, which I still use for reference were _Traditional Penmanship_ by Anne Trudgill, _The Anatomy of Letters_ by Charles Pearce, _Formal Penmanship_ by Edward Johnston and _Written Letters_ by Jacqui Svaren. I bought the Drogin book after I saw it at a scriptorium at Collegium Caidis. I think Drogin is good reference for the variety of hands written during period and, since it is a paperback and readily available, I don't mind taking it to events or loaning it to people. Luighseach nic Lochlainn ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 00:32:04 EDT From: SCOTSWMMN@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: hands (snippett): << I'm going to take the advice some of you have offered and try several different hands until I find one that's most comfortable. Maybe after I master one, learning another won't be so difficult. >> Yep. Well. . . Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a fledgling scribe who learned how to do uncial. She got fairly good at it, so she used it almost exclusively. After she had mastered uncial, she began branching out, trying other styles, and did ok with them too (or so she thought at the time). She got out of doing calligraphy (and medieval stuff) soon afterwards. But now she's back, and working on her "hands' after buying a copy of Drogin (what a cool book, BTW). She's been working on the "gothic littera bastarda" , and gosh darnit, all of her letters are waaay too wide! The reason? Of course, it's that uncial effect - instead of doing her letters 4 pen-widths high by around 2 1/2 pen widths wide, she's making the width of her letters the whole 4 pen-widths! Luckily, she's realizing her mistake and taking corrective measures. Although she still has to reaaaallly think a lot about the width of her letters, it is getting easier (well, um, mostly. . .). The moral of this silly story is that, for me, practicing a specific hand until I mastered it has caused me to unconsciously copy it for every other style I try. I think that if I had practiced a hand until I was "comfortable" with it (and the pen), but switched around a bit to get familiar with other styles, I wouldn't be in this dilemma today. I'm experienced enough to know what I'm doing wrong, but not often accomplished enough to catch my mistakes before I make them. So . . . When I'm doing scrolls, I find that I do better if I use a pencil to block in the letters before I actually calligraph them - that forces me to be aware of the spacing that I'm using for a particular hand. Also, I usually practice the hand for quite a while before actually starting on the scroll, so that my hand gets reminded about what it's supposed to be doing. It's not unusual for me to fill at least an entire 9x12 sheet (if not more) with lettering before I quite "practicing". Finally, for me, at least, the most important thing when I'm doing calligraphy is to learn to relax! Half of my problems with forming letters come when I've got that death grip on the pen. Half the fun of C&I, though, is that I'm constantly challenged - and I learn more every time I pick up a pen. With apologies for the length of this message, Margaret Cameron ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V2 #115 *****************************