{"id":1018,"date":"2015-02-08T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2015-02-08T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/?p=1018"},"modified":"2015-02-07T15:12:31","modified_gmt":"2015-02-07T22:12:31","slug":"exemplar-exercise-humility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/08\/exemplar-exercise-humility\/","title":{"rendered":"Exemplar as an exercise in humility"},"content":{"rendered":"
Developing an exemplar is one of the most humbling exercises that a calligrapher can undertake. Having spent hours on this one, a number of thoughts tumble (my original typo “thumble” seems apt) through my head, in no particular order:<\/p>\n
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In most of my work I usually choose Roman capitals to go with italic minuscules, and it shows here. Which leads me to the specific note …<\/li>\n
G: pick an oval, won’t you? That G bears no resemblance to the C or O or Q.<\/li>\n
D: doesn’t have much base.<\/li>\n
U: there’s an awful lot of skinny in the connecting stroke.<\/li>\n
F: looks like it’s mid-jump on a pogo stick; that’s a paste-up error.<\/li>\n
M: has a heavy top left shoulder.<\/li>\n
W: has an awkward join on the right bottom corner; I’m usually better about that.<\/li>\n
Z: well, I don’t know what exactly, but the base is not straight and it looks wooden; perhaps I should have flattened the pen angle a bit more on the horizontals<\/li>\n
L: although I didn’t spend much time on kerning, the L is noticeably too close to the M. It’s all crowded but I wanted them as large as possible but still fitting on a letter-size page.<\/li>\n
J: also wooden, except where it’s wavy when it shouldn’t be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Sigh. Well, I do like the P and R … That leaves only 24 letters that need work.<\/p>\n
I used a partially dried-out 5mm Zig marker so that students can see how the letters are being made.<\/p>\n
![\"2015-02-06](\"http:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/2015-02-06-italic-plain-caps-exemplar.jpg\")
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