The six most common writing styles (‘hands’) are explained clearly through step-by-step photographs – uncial, foundation, gothic, italic, sharpened italic and copperplate. Every letter of every hand is drawn out in stroke order and there is advice on letter and word spacing, all shown in clear, step-by-step photographs.

Paperback, 210 x 148 mm ; 96 pages

Start Calligraphy by Maureen Sullivan

Just get started on the first of the 24 one-hour lessons contained in this book, follow the suggestions for practicing your new skills at the end of one lesson before going on to the next, and then continue this process right through to the end. Calligraphy in 24 Hours is a carefully structured beginner’s course where readers will quickly learn the basic principles and then go on to learn beautiful calligraphy in a series of 24 one-hour tutorials.

Veiko Kespersaks is a professional calligrapher and seasoned teacher.

Calligraphy in 24, 1 Hour Lessons

The Royal British Legion

Properties

• Gouache Extra Fine can be thinned with any amount of water; all colours can be mixed amongst each other.

• The paint dries within a few minutes and has a velvety matt and equally opaque finish after drying.

• After drying the paint layer is not waterproof.

We stock nine colours and five Metal Colours

Carefully dry the nibs.

Numbers can be either ranged or non-ranged. Ranged numbers are typically used with Capital letters where there are no ascenders and descenders. Non-ranged numbers are used minuscule text where there are ascenders and descenders.

The method of construction is the same for ranged and non-ranged. We are showing you non-ranged numbers.

0, 1, 2 The first group of numbers have the same height, or body height as minuscule letters. So, for the Foundational Hand the numbers would be 4.5 nib widths tall.

3, 4, 5, 7, 9
This group of letters all have descenders, meaning part of the number goes below the write-line.

6, 8 The numbers 6 and 8 go above the x-height line.

Simon has been a friend of ours at Scribblers for many years and has helped us develop the range of products you can find in our Illustrating section.

A piece of Simon’s artwork was used for the Illustrator Supplies section image:

'Sinister Dexter' copyright 2011 2000AD/Rebellion

http://www.2000adonline.com/
http://www.simoncoleby.co.uk/

You need to be careful when adding serifs.  If they are too big they can distract from the letterform and can even alter the final shape of the letter.

Some letters do not have serifs, for example ‘C’ and ‘O’

The most popular styles of serifs are the hook and slab.

Hook Serifs

These are the easiest style of serif to produce.  They appear at the start and/or end of a straight pen-stroke.  It’s important to make these serifs small.  When producing the hook shape it can help to visualise a small circle, which you trace round with the pen.  Otherwise this circle shape can be too big, which will make the serif too large.

Hook serifs are made at the same time as the main pen stroke rather than afterwards.  For example, both serifs on the letter ‘I’ and the letter itself is produced with one pen-stroke.

Slab Serifs

Slab serifs are small straight lines and are added after the letter has been produced rather than at the same time as the main stroke. So a letter ‘I’ would be made from three pen-strokes.

It’s better to flatten the pen angle for these serifs as leaving the pen at 45 degrees can make the serif look to ‘heavy’ or ‘chunky’.  With slab serifs be careful not to construct them off centre, which will spoil the letter.

So, now if you want Calligraphy materials and equipment you will find them under the heading of Calligraphy Supplies.  If you are looking for Illustrators materials you will find them in the Illustrator Supplies section.  Some items, in particular nibs can be found in more than one section if they are suitable for calligraphers and illustrators.  Other products like pencils, rulers etc. are used by different artists and so are in more general sections like Drawing Equipment.

Over time we have posted lots of articles on our blog about different aspects of calligraphy.  The Calligraphy School is a new section which pulls together some of these posts on calligraphy.  So for example, all the posts on learning Roman Capitals can be now be easily   found in one place.