From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V2 #116 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Saturday, June 27 1998 Volume 02 : Number 116 In this issue: Re: [scribes]:How to hold the arm?(was printed text?) Re: [scribes]: Calligraphy fonts [scribes]: My first work [scribes]: My first work Re: [scribes]: Calligraphy fonts Re: [scribes]:How to hold the arm?(was printed text?) [scribes]: beginning calligraphers (long) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 10:38:56 +0200 From: Anna Troy Subject: Re: [scribes]:How to hold the arm?(was printed text?) Whoops, this was supposed to be for the whole list, sorry JimBear. Well, I think I'll be writing the text myself anyway. I did however notice something, I don't move my whole arm when I write, just my hand. Since this seems to change the angle of the pen slightly back and forth as I do my stokes it got me thinking. I haven't been able to find anything about it in any of the books I looked in so I'm asking you guys :-), should you move your whole arm so that the angle of the pen is more constant or doesn't it matter. Anna de Byxe At 13:09 1998-06-26 EDT, you wrote: >>In a message dated 98-06-26 04:17:50 EDT, bibksat@Lisen.bibks.uu.se= writes: >> >><< The thing is that my calligraphy sucks and I feel very tempted=20 >> to do the text on a computer, I'd only do the illumination by hand. Now= =20 >> is this complete blasphmey or has anybody else tried this? >>=20 >> Anna de Byxe >> >> >>Practise! Practise! Practise! :) :) :) ...........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 >> >> ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' "Anna's LARP Craft Links Page" http://www.bibks.uu.se/58/home.html "Aros H=E4rads Hemsida" http://hem.passagen.se/owly ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 10:46:11 +0200 From: Anna Troy Subject: Re: [scribes]: Calligraphy fonts Drogin has lots of good stuff but for the clearest instructions for each letter my favorite calligraphy book is "The Art of Calligraphy" by David Harris. He's the only author I've seen who uses three different colors for the different strokes and since they slightly transparent you can see exactly what he's done.=20 =20 Anna de Byxe At 13:42 1998-06-26 EDT, you wrote: >=20 > You mean stuff to teach you how? The default answer is Marc Drogin, _Medieval > Calligraphy_. You can find it listed on my bibliography page at > . Just about everybody in >the > SCA learns calligraphy from Drogin; I don't think I've ever heard an > alternative first text suggested (aren't intellectual monocultures fun?). > >> >Since she has gotten three different answers from as many people........so >obviously all hands are simple..........JimBear > > ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' "Anna's LARP Craft Links Page" http://www.bibks.uu.se/58/home.html "Aros H=E4rads Hemsida" http://hem.passagen.se/owly ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 11:44:39 +0200 From: Anna Troy Subject: [scribes]: My first work Okay, I'm taking the plunge :-) This is the first and only illumination I've made http://www.bibks.uu.se/58/word.html.=20 I made it a couple of months ago. I used gouache. It's a salvage job realy since I had to cut away the knot borders after I managed to get a big ink-splotch on them. So it became a gospel page. Enjoy, Anna de Byxe ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' "Anna's LARP Craft Links Page" http://www.bibks.uu.se/58/home.html "Aros H=E4rads Hemsida" http://hem.passagen.se/owly ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 11:46:46 +0200 From: Anna Troy Subject: [scribes]: My first work Oh I forgot :-) Comments of ANY kind are welcome. You can see why I was aking about lines before. Anna=20 >Okay, I'm taking the plunge :-) This is the first and only illumination I've made http://www.bibks.uu.se/58/word.html.=20 >I made it a couple of months ago. I used gouache. It's a salvage job realy since I had to cut away the knot borders after I managed to get a big ink-splotch on them. So it became a gospel page. > >Enjoy, > >Anna de Byxe ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' "Anna's LARP Craft Links Page" http://www.bibks.uu.se/58/home.html "Aros H=E4rads Hemsida" http://hem.passagen.se/owly ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 00:41:22 -0700 From: "Thomas Brownwell" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Calligraphy fonts Hi there gang. Master James (aka the Fitchmeister) has made an important point that *all* hands are equally easy. So let's see a show of hands, shall I do a scroll for him in Merovingian, or heaven forfend, Luxeuil Minuscule just to show him what easy is??? (One of you'll have to paint it for me...:-) - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Douglas Brownell AKA Thomas Brownwell, Calligrapher, brownwell@home.com Dancer,Silversmith,Singer,Cobbler,... San Diego, CA Barony of Calafia, Caid The 4 elements = good physics stuff:: Or,a fountain, a chief rayonny gules. Goutte enough herald:: (Fieldless) A goutte barry wavy azure and argent. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 07:33:04 +0100 From: David Columbus Subject: Re: [scribes]:How to hold the arm?(was printed text?) >Whoops, this was supposed to be for the whole list, sorry JimBear. > >Well, I think I'll be writing the text myself anyway. I did however notice >something, I don't move my whole arm when I write, just my hand. Since this >seems to change the angle of the pen slightly back and forth as I do my >stokes it got me thinking. I haven't been able to find anything about it in >any of the books I looked in so I'm asking you guys :-), should you move >your whole arm so that the angle of the pen is more constant or doesn't it >matter. > Well, I'm going to be dating myself with this response but, what the hey. When I learned to write back in grade school in the 1950's, they still taught the Peterson Method (which has unfortunately gone out of vogue). This was a method of using the entire arm from the shoulder down to form your letters. And simple physics dictates that you will get a smoother line with a longer instrument (the entire arm length of two feet as opposed to the finger length of two inches). The gist of this is to help create a smoother, more legible handwriting. When necessary, you can move the fingers and hand to create your flourishes. Essentially, the hand and fingers don't move a lot during this procedure (which helps keep the pen angle the same throughout). It also assists in helping to keep the fingers, hand and arm more relaxed. I have been unable so far (although I haven't searched real hard) for material on this method. If anyone has any information on this, please drop me a line. * When I joined the SCA, this is the same method my teachers showed me to do calligraphy. * When I joined the mudane calligraphy guild, this is the way the teachers showed me to write. * When I took a graphic arts class on calligraphy, this is the way the teacher showed us how to do calligraphy. Now that I've said all this, I've seen some people do the finger moving method and produce wonderful results with it. Honestly, I don't know how they do it. But I just know that I can't seem to get the hang of moving the fingers only. Christofano ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 09:10:47 -0400 (EDT) From: stacey jill wahrman Subject: [scribes]: beginning calligraphers (long) Sibry (and other beginners), Don't worry too much over trouble with uncials, different people have easier times with different hands, the evidence of which is that everyone on the list seems to have a different favorite "starter" hand. If you've never done *any* calligraphy before, I would recommend not starting with a medieval hand at all--work on our modern alphabet and get used to the pen first, learning how the letters are formed by the way you hold your pen, practice making thick vertical and thin horizontal lines, etc. The pen should be at an angle that's comfortable for you, at roughly 45 degrees to the paper. Start with graph paper to practice making all the letters the same size and ensure that the straight lines stay straight. If you're really attached to uncials as a first hand, work on making sure that the letters line up to have the same distance between them, have rounded shapes, are the right width and height (measure them against the grid lines on your graph paper), and most importantly, make sure that you're not holdng the pen too tightly. With any hand, but with uncials particularly, you need to be relaxed in order to make the hand flow right. If you're making indentations in the paper, you're hand is hurting and needs to be "shaken out" repeatedly, or someone standing above you would need to wrestle the pen out of your fingers instead of plucking it gently, you're holding the pen too tight, which will make gentle curves just about impossible in uncials. A few people on the list seem to favor a glass of wine to relax them, I favor soothing music and a calm frame of mind to start with (though like most scribes I can't listen to music with words while I'm writing, since I start writing what I hear...) I can see a definite difference in my writing when I'm tense. You'll figure out what works to relax you through trial and error. Once you're comfortable with a modern alphabet, you might want to try a simple Roman hand, which looks just like a modern alphabet with a few flourishes. Drogin is okay for that, but his stuff tends to be more advanced than I think beginners want. A better choice, if you can find it, is John Lancaster's _Writing Medieval Scripts_, which has fewer hands than Drogin, but works on getting used to the pen first and then presents most of the hands divided into groups based on how the letters are shaped (AMNVWXZ, BPRKS, CDEGORY, FHIJLTZ), which helps get you used to the shapes of different kind of letters, since many of them are formed the same way. When I've taught calligraphy classes people seemed to respond much better to this book's hands. The Speedball guide, a thick pamphlet you can get from most art stores, is good for absolute beginners since it doesn't confuse you with too much info to start :-) The reason some people adore uncials to start with and some people vastly prefer the straight up-and-down hands, like gothic blackletter and such, is just that people have different ways of taking in information in the form of shapes, so some people are better at drawing round or abstract things (like uncials) and some people are better at square or straight things, (like blackletter). This is not the same as being right- or left-brained, it just has to do with our ability to reproduce shapes (thought *most* left brained people are better at straight lines). Generally people are attracted to the hands they're good at, both because you instinctively know what hands will suit you, to a certain degree, and because you'll always be *better* at the hands you like. As you get better at these you can also improve at the hands you don't like as much, and that will come with practice. Hope this was helpful to beginners, and cleared up some of why no one can agree on what the easiest beginner alphabet is :-) Arianwen - -=*=-=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=- Stacey Wahrman wahrman@wam.umd.edu Like a parrot in a picture window, I can see where I want to be. But repeated blows to my feathered little head Have taught me not to fly straight. -- The Bobs ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V2 #116 *****************************