The other day I was sorting out some drawers and I came across this envelope.It was from Brian Walker and the post mark indicates it was sent in 1999. The images do not do justice to the quality of the calligraphy. When you look closely you can see the detail and extremely fine hairlines.
Unlike the Copperplate style, the Spencerian minuscule letters are more cursive in their construction. Looking closely at the word ‘Suffolk’ it would have been written as follows:The capital ‘S’ was written first! This letter is written at some speed i.e. not carefully drawn. When I have observed Brian writing Spencerian he would practice the capital letterform a little in the air just above the paper (a bit like a golfer practising a putt). The letters ‘uf’ follow – all in one continuous movement without lifting the pen off the paper. Pressure was applied on the down-stroke of the ‘f’ to get the shade (thick part). The second ‘f’ was written on it’s own. Finally ‘olk’ would have been produced in one continuous movement without a pen lift.
It was a little disappointing when I looked inside the envelope – there were two blank sheets of Character paper for me to try and a post-it note stuck paper explaining why the paper was so good for pointed pen writing.
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