Studying Akim for our guild’s long-term project with monoline lettering. Here the lines are discrete, but the letter elements are stretched to maximize the graphic impact and slow down reading. Fine-line marker on Clairfontaine paper. About 4 x 6 in, as I recall.
I’ve come across Akim script several times over the years, most usually because I return again and again to Hans-Joachim Burgert’s book The Calligraphic Line. This script is an approach as much as a hand, developed by Burgert. Until now, it has not drawn me in. But now I see it as a relaxation of the confines of lettering in favor of the graphical aspect of the page. And I’m really enjoying it.
These pages were done while sitting at the piano through many hours of choreography and staging and technical rehearsals for a production of “Carousel.” All I needed was a pad of Clairfontaine Triomphe paper and a fine-line marker. (I didn’t even need guidelines, a circumstance that is quite freeing.) Most of these were done with ZIG Millennium markers, sizes 005 to 03.
Here the lines are baselines are allowed to wave, but the lines intrude only sometimes upon one another. Fine-line marker on Clairfontaine paper. About 4 x 6 in, as I recall.
Here I’m exploring a less linear texture by allowing the lines of text to intrude upon one another. Because of this intrusion, I’ve lessened the contrast between the letters’ wide arcs and the small counters. The text is “After Quiet,” by Hazel Hall. Fine-line marker on Clairfontaine paper, about 8 x 10 in.
Our local guild, Bridger Mountain Scribes, is now 8 months into a year-long project. We are each making a portfolio of 6″ x 9″ pieces featuring a variety of monoline lettering styles and watercolor decorations. My theme is “Questions.” And here’s my piece, which I may re-do, for month 6. (You can see 3 earlier months’ work here.)
A weekly online lettering prompt “Warp & Weft” coincided with work I’ve been doing to develop a workshop on built-up capitals. And this resulted:
Leftover palette of gouache, #6 Mitchell Roundhand nib, student-grade watercolor paper. Content area 5 x 4 inches.
Note to self (for the umpteenth time): don’t use crappy paper even for experimentation if there’s any chance at all that something interesting will result.
Our local calligraphy guild, Bridger Mountain Scribes, has embarked on a long-term project. Each month, Diana demonstrates a new layout, monoline lettering style, and/or decorative treatment for our 6″ x 9″ watercolor pages. At the end of the project, we’ll make an enclosure to house our pages. Here are three of the pages I’ve made during recent meetings.
Zig Millennium marker, travel set of watercolors, watercolors pencils on 6″ x 9″ watercolor paperZig Millennium marker and travel set of watercolors on 6″ x 9″ watercolor paperZig Millennium markers and travel set of watercolors on 6″ x 9″ watercolor paper
Here’s a perhaps weird mash-up of summer, illumination, pencil, and Ben Shahn’s lettering.
I have an impressive, or perhaps merely excessive, array of flip-flops, all dating from at least 15 years ago, when we moved from Florida to Montana. They were all the footwear I had, besides a pair of sneakers and a pair of dress sandals. My closet looks very different now, but I love hauling out the box of flip-flops every summer for, oh, about 6 weeks each year.
Done in my pencil journal on a plane with a Blackwing pencil (Natural).
I’m honored to have two of my books selected for inclusion in the artist book exhibit CONTENT at the The Artery in Davis, CA. If you follow this blog, you’ll have seen them here before.
Scintillate, Scintillate is an edition of 12 manuscript books. I talked about them earlier in detail here.
This week I begin teaching a 3-week, online edition of my workshop, “Ben Shahn-ish.” In preparation, I have continued to improvise with Ben Shahn’s folk hand as a basis. I last taught this more than a year ago, but each time I revisit the hand I discover more about it.
Ben Shahn’s folk hand is a wonderful canvas for improvisation in so many ways. As far as I know, we don’t have conclusive information about what tool he used for these letters. Ignorance is bliss in this case: I’ve tried them with a broad-edge pen, a pointed pen, a folded pen, a pointed brush, several pencils, and more. Each tool teaches a little more.
Later I’ll discourse at length on a philosophy of learning, but first: There’s a lot going on in the studio! But I have very little to show here. Nearly all of my recent work has been commissioned for weddings and other occasions. I’ve also updating the workshops I will teach this summer and fall.
In the past few weeks, I’ve completed a ketubah with watercolored maple trees, a Quaker-style marriage certificate (on mat board, unusually), place cards, menus, chopstick tags, invitation addresses, and more. And I’ve been developing new handouts for my updated “Ben Shahn-ish” workshop.
How we learn
I often use the pages of my daily journal to determine lengths, plan layouts, and explore scripts and script variations. When sharing my daily journal with my (awesome!) critique group last week, someone asked me how I switch so easily between calligraphy hands. I didn’t have an answer then, but I’ve been thinking about the question a lot.
It has something to do the way we learn. I vaguely remember that the ancient Greek philosophy of education asserted that when we learn one subject, we apply that learning to the next subject we learn, and we also learn how to learn, and so on. I think it’s called constructivism in modern jargon.
It’s all coming together
So when I first learned Edward Johnston’s foundational hand, I learned to analyze shape and spacing. Later, I learned pointed pen lettering and the important kinetics of pressure-and-release and gestural writing. When, much later, I circled back around to bookhand, that learning gave me the tools to do the pressure and manipulation required for a nuanced bookhand such as Civilité or those taught by Elmo van Slingerland. That’s just one example.
My point is that, after a mere 40 years of lettering, the disparate disciplines have come together for me, both intellectually and kinetically. Every hand has its mix of shape, counter-shape, gesture, tempo, rubato, pressure, nuance, and more. At this point, to sit and write in an italic hand and then switch to an uncial hand is, at its simplest, a matter of changing up the combination of these elements.
… except when it’s not, of course
This is not to say that I can perfectly render every hand at any time. Not at all! To write my very best bookhand, for instance, I’d need to write a lot of bookhand for several weeks. And I’d have to write with focused intention. This is true for just about any hand. And it’s true for broad-edge pens, pencils, and pointed pens. (I’m least tutored in the latter). The brush lettering is creeping its way into the tent, though I may not live long enough for the brush to join the other tools fully.
This is how I feel today. Tomorrow, I may sit down at the desk that my great-grandfather built for his son, the desk I’ve sat at for the past several decades, and find that I know nothing whatsoever about lettering. It has happened often enough now that I know to expect it.
Calligraphers are always on the lookout for cool studio tools and guideline makers. Hanging out on social media can net you some great resources; online guidelines generators are some of these.
These are good, but give me one of those green lettering liners any day. Too bad they’re not made anymore. The closest equivalent is the Ames lettering guide, but I don’t use those. It took me awhile to figure out what was wrong with them. There just aren’t enough of the holes that I use for pencil guidelines. The Linex (Koh-i-noor and Steadtler also made them) liner, on the left below, has 16 holes, compared to the Ames lettering guide on the right, which has only 10 holes down the center. The Linex lets you do a lot less repositioning, which means you can do it in a lot less time.
Linex lettering liner. Antique, as you can see.
Ames lettering guide
These lettering liners are far from intuitive. There’s a great tutorial at JetPens that explain how to use all the features of the Ames lettering guide. I only use the center row; the holes in that row are equidistant. But perhaps I should try the other rows, which allow for an x-height that 2/3 of the capital height, or an x-height that is 2/3 the capital height.
Guidelines are a constant source of interest to calligraphers. I’m amused to re-read my post on guidelines from more than 10 years ago on the subject. I still mourn the demise of Calli-Graphic, an app that allowed one to make straight and even circular guidelines with a desired x-height and leading.
