Reddit reviews Mastering Copperplate Calligraphy: A Step-by-Step Manual (Lettering, Calligraphy, Typography)

This was me early 2012. I was using shitty paper and shitty ink and had shitty results. This was March 2012 when I didn't give a shit.

Eventually I decided to take things seriously. This was late 2012. I started getting better materials but still got arrogant/lazy and refused to study proper forms and shades. So it looks haphazard and unnatural.

So I bought Eleanor Winter's book and did some practice. This was probably Dec 2012. Another pic, you can see I'm using Higgins Eternal and a Speedball holder.

So around February I decided I didn't like copperplate and wanted to focus on spencerian instead. I first tried to do shaded spencerian but again I was too lazy to learn the proper forms.

I toned down the shading and studied just on fine lines. This was in March.

Eventually I got more consistent. This was written two weeks ago in April. This was late april's open letter submission.

And this was written tonight (the bottom one). May 9.
Still working on shaded spencerian though :)

> Trying to do a copperplate.

Perfect! I'd suggest checking out the lessons on Zanerian.com. Specifically Brown, Lupfer, and Zaner.

You could also try checking out Mastering Copperplate Calligraphy. I've hated on this book pretty heavily in the past, but it is an okay enough beginner resource. Has a lot of information to get you up and running. But only if you realize that it's a stepping stone. Use it for a bit, but make sure you move on to better resources.

> umm. so what's wrong over at /r/handwriting

They can't help you. It's just a sub for "look at a pretty 'm' I made in my bio notes today."

I learned copperplate first, and now do it a little more freehand, it's not truly copperplate at this point. These two books have been incredibly helpful to me :)

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Copperplate-Calligraphy-Step-Step/dp/0486409511/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0AP5DQ18Y53SR62ED2AD

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Calligraphy-Everything-Started-Script/dp/1250016320

Thanks! It's nothing compared to the folks over /r/calligraphy though. I started practicing a few months ago with this. Long as you have patience, you can write better than I do in no time!

I'm probably at the same progress as you are so don't take my word as gospel. However, from my limited experience, there seems to be a balance between when to "move you pen from your shoulder and elbow" vs "when to move your pen with your wrist and fingers."

For me,

1. longer lines like the ascenders and descenders seem to come out better when I move from the shoulder.
   
2. curves on the lower case letters are smoother when I use more fingers and wrist.
   
   I picked up #1 from reading Eleanor Winters and #2 from practicing and thinking I make total crap lower case letters when moving from my shoulder. I know some of the well-respected people around here prefer other teachers than EW, so hopefully someone else can come and give better suggestions. I would be eager to see what others say!

Hello, all!

This is the first sentence I've (attempted) to write in Copperplate. I know it needs quite a bit of work so I thought I'd ask for suggestions.

Right now I'm using a Pilot Plumix until my nib, holder, and dip ink arrives. I'm using a Rhodia notebook. I'm working with this book, which is where I got the sentence from.

So far, I know:

• my angle needs work
  
• my spacing needs work
  
• my "x" is terrible, and
  
• my loops are not consistent
  
  Could anyone please point me to any other areas of improvement?

For Copperplate

For Spencerian


For Cursive basics(The content is good, but the paper isn't great for FPs, so you will probably need to use a Fine nib)

No problem! That's so awesome that you do brush lettering-- I actually have a small calligraphy business and brush lettering is my go-to style, so while I might be a little biased, I'm a total sucker for brush lettering. :) I'm not sure if you've tried using brush markers at all, but I've heard from a few lefty calligraphy buddies that they're really great for brush lettering practice since they dry quickly and you don't have to worry as much about smudging.

Oh, and when you decide to learn pointed pen calligraphy, I can't recommend this book enough! I tried a couple books that I didn't love, then after being told by countless people to try this one, I did and it made everything click.

Ok, for constructive criticism:

• get lined paper or get a sheet as guidlines to place under your paper.
  
  
• Choose an exemplar (some form of copperplate or roundhand)
  
  
• Practice and aim for consistency.
  
  If you really want to get into it, a good book to have around with information on how to practice and some good/fun examples of copperplate is Eleanor Winters Mastering Copperplate Calligraphy.
  
  I would also suggest watching a few of the videos by Paul Antonio on his YouTube.
  
  These things are all geared towards calligraphy with a dip pen, but the style and techniques will be useful to apply to using your pen.
  
  Good luck.
  
  

This contest is awesome, thanks! (Sorry for the link I'm on my phone)

Mastering Copperplate Calligraphy: A Step-by-Step Manual (Lettering, Calligraphy, Typography)
http://amzn.com/0486409511

To expound on the 80-90/10-20 part, look at many scripts.

1. Gothic Quadrata: In order to be perfectly, formally written, you have so little control over creativity that it's practically a typeface. Which was, of course, the whole point. The creativity then comes in the capitals, which were usually where elaborate displays of calligraphic skill came into play.
   
2. Copperplate: Copperplate is even more restrictive. It has so many rules and regulations guarding each and every letter that you could write pages and pages on how to write the letter 'a' alone. (In fact, Eleanor Winters does just that )
   
3. Copperplate evolved into Engraver's script, which was even more restrictive. Involving a little bit more creativity, but each letter was composed of at least 2, if not 3 strokes. Not including connection strokes. The page would be rotated, turned about and you would retouch almost every stroke. Expression came after the invention of Spencerian/Ornamental script, where people started to use stylized versions of Ornamental capitals in their copperplate writing, and they started to be a little more creative with it (as long as the work didn't require a formal style. Formal style always went back to The Universal Penmanship roots)
   
4. Spencerian is the most free style ever created for calligraphy. Not even italic is so free, italic simply has more variations to play with. But, anyway, spencerian has several variations of several different letters. They have 3 different types of t's, they have ending variations of letters with descenders and variations where the letters loop back up. All these variations were designed to increase speed, and give creativity.
   
5. Spencerian developed into ornamental penmanship, which included more shading of the lower characters, and became a much more laborious process with extremely intricate and beautiful capitals.
   
   It helps to remember where calligraphy came from. Calligraphy was simply the result of marketing. Back in the day, scribes and nobels were the only ones that could write. So what happened? Well for scribes, what's your most effective marketing tool? "I can write faster and prettier than the guy next to me". And for nobels, why calligraphy? "I can write elegantly, so it demonstrates the fact that I'm a man of high culture and class".
   
   So if you think of Calligraphy as striving towards beauty and efficiency for the sake of marketing, ease of reading, and the ability to not have scripts degrade when other people wrote them, it makes a lot more sense. (monks needed the latter, which is why the gothic styles are among the most restrictive. If you're copying books for hundreds of years, it wouldn't do to have the book of Matthew be totally different looking than the book of genesis)
   
   As it became more developed, it became more artistic and creative as people pushed the boundaries of technology, innovation and knowledge. Much like Gymnastics started out as much more rough and tumble sport, and now almost every gymnastics routine is identical as everyone strives towards a clearly and concretely defined ideal.
   
   Now that we have paper in abundance, and pens that are affordable to anyone (e.g. free), we're entering into a new era. Everyone can write, so therefore writing is optional. It's a funny idea, but that's how it usually is. If everyone can do something, it's not novel, and as things progress the trade is refined and elaborated into an artform, or dropped into disuse.
   
   Farming: Everyone did it. It became not novel, but rather a given. It progressed, then, into an artform. The artform being "how efficiently, and how fast, can I grow things?". Today, this artform is incredibly complex, requiring machinery, vast resources, technology and even PhD's to advance the craft. To practice it, you don't need nearly that amount of resources, but it's still a far cry from saying "hey, I bet if I used a metal hoe instead of a wooden one..."
   
   Writing: Everyone that needed to became able to do it (scribes/learned-men/nobles). It became not novel, but rather a given that you could find a scribe. It then progressed into an artform, being "how efficiently and beautifully can I write this?". Today, everyone knows how to write basically, so the art of writing has reached an equilibrium. It's advanced enough to get the job done, and it needs to go no further. In the art side of it, however, it's continued to advance as people develop better and more advanced technique, technology and equipment for the art. Fountain pens, flexible ones, dip nibs, better inks, better paper, more efficient ways of learning it, etc.
   
   Hand-lettering is simply the in between stage of writing as an art and as a utility, as our technology is so diverse on the Earth in needs and utilization that all crafts and trades are in a constant state of flux across many levels of skill. (We have advanced metal working for CPUs, and we have people who still craft cups and knives out of metal by hand). Hand-lettering could also be seen as the creative expression of the art of writing, much like power-tumbling is the creative expression of gymnastics, or gardening/landscaping is the creative expression of farming.
   
   Edit: motherofgod.gif
   
   I wrote way more than I intended to... Sorry.

I followed the exercises in this book for 1 month: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0486409511/
Ms. Winters does a great job breaking down lower case letters into 8 strokes. If you are looking for drills, those are the 8 strokes to practice.

Once I decided I liked the hand, I took this online course: https://istilllovecalligraphy.com/#!/

Although, the more I think about what you are trying to do, perhaps Copperplate would just be a distraction. Copperplate is not a "continuous hand". It has a lot of stopping and lifting of the nib.

I only did a few drills. Most of my "aha moments" came practicing the 8 basic strokes and writing the same word a couple times to see how closely I could get them to match. In those repetitions, I began to see how the curves should form.

I'm trying to learn copperplate, so I got this one

This is the book I learned from. Shows you how to draw every single letter—

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Copperplate-Calligraphy-Step-Step/dp/0486409511