After studying the proportions of the Foundational Hand letters, the next step is to start writing the letters.
Each letter is constructed rather than written. The letters are made up of a combination of pen strokes, which are only made in a top – down or left – right direction. The pen is never pushed up.
When we studied the proportions of the Foundational Hand we could group the letters according to their widths. Now, we can group them according to the order and direction of the pen strokes.
You may find it useful to look at the construction grid whilst studying the order and direction of the letters.

The first group consists of the letters c, e, and o.
These letters are based on the circle shape. This shape is produced with two pen strokes. Visualise a clock face and start the first stroke at approximately the 11, and finish it in an anti-clockwise direction at 5. The second stroke starts again at the 11 and finishes in a clockwise direction on the 5 to complete the letter o.
The first pen-stroke for the letters c and e are the same as the first of the letter o. The second pen-stroke on the c and e are shorter and finish around the 1 position on the imaginary clock face.
Finally, the letter e has a third stroke, starting at the end of the second stroke and finishes when it touches the first stroke.

The next group of letters are d, q, b and p. All these letters combine curved and straight pen strokes. When writing these letters it can be useful to think of the underlying circle shape, which your pen will leave or join at certain points depending upon which letter is being written.
The first stroke of the b starts at the ascender height of the letter, which can be eyed in at just under half the x-height (body height of letters with no ascender or descender). Continue the ascender stroke of the b until it ‘picks up’ the circle shape, follow round the circle until the pen reaches the 5 on the imaginary clock face. The second stroke starts on the first stroke following the circle round until it touches the end of the first stroke.
The letter d is similar to the c except it has a third stroke for the ascender, which will touch the ends of the first and second stroke being for finishing on the write-line.
Letter p starts with a vertical stroke from the x-height down to the imaginary descender line, which is just under half the x-height below the write-line. The second and third strokes are curved, starting on the descender stroke and following round the imaginary circle.
The letter q is almost the same as the d, except it has a descender stroke rather than an ascender stroke.

Letters a, h, m, n, r
All these letters combine curved and straight pen strokes. Once again, think of the underlying circle shape, which your pen will leave or join at certain points depending upon the letter being written.
The Letter h consists of two pen strokes. The first is a vertical ascender stroke. The second stroke starts curved, follows the circle round, then leaves it and becomes straight.
The letter n is produced exactly the same way as the letter h, except the first stroke is not so tall as it starts on the x-height line. The first two pen strokes of the letter m are the same as the letter n. Then a third stroke is added which is identical to the second stroke.
The letter r is also written the same way as the letter n except the second stroke finishes at the point where the circle would have been left and the straight is picked up.
The first stroke of letter a is the same as the second stroke of the letters h, m and n. The second stroke follows the circle. Finally, the third stroke starts at the same point as the second stroke, but is a straight line at a 30° angle and touches the first stroke.

The next group of letters are l, u and t. These letters are straight-forward. The letter l is the same as the first stroke of letter b.
The letter u is also similar to the first stroke of letter b except it starts lower down. The second stroke starts on the x-height line and finishes on the write-line.
Letter t has the same first stroke as letter u. It is completed by a second horizontal stroke.

The following letters k, v, w, x, y and z are made of at least one diagonal pen stroke.
The letter k starts with a vertical ascender stroke, then a second stroke diagonal stroke which joins the vertical stroke. The final stroke is also diagonal and starts where the first and second stroke meet and stops when it touches the write-line. If you look closely you will see it goes further out than the second stroke. This makes the letter look more balanced. If the end of these two pen-strokes lined up the letter would look like it is about to fall over.
Letter v is simply two diagonal strokes and these are repeated to produce the letter w.
The letter y is the same as the v except the second stroke is extended until to create a descender stroke.
Letter x is a little different, you need to create it in such a way that the two stroke cross slightly above the half-way mark on the x-height. This means the top part will be slightly smaller than the bottom which will give the letter a better balance.
Finally, in this group is letter z. The easiest way to produce this is with the two horizontal pen strokes, thenjoin these two strokes with a diagonal pen-stroke to complete the letter.

Now for the hardest letters; f, g and s. Out of these three letters, f is the simplest. It starts with a vertical ascender stroke – except this is not as tall as the other ascender strokes we have produced so far. This is because we have to allow for the second curved stroke. The overall height of these two strokes should be the same as other letters that have an ascender. Finally, we need a horizontal stroke to complete the letter.
Which will you find the hardest letter g or s? These are trickier because unlike all the other letters we have written they do not relate so well to the grid.
The letter g is made of a circle shape, with an oval/bowl shape under the write-line. You can see the letter g is made of three pen-strokes. The first stroke is just like the first stroke of the letter o for example, except it is a smaller. The second stroke starts like the second stroke of the letter o, but when it joins the first stroke it continues and changes direction in the gap between the bottom of the shape and the write-line. The third stroke completes the oval shape. Finally, we have a little fourth stroke to complete the letter.
The letter s is made up of three strokes. The first stroke is sort of an s shape! The second and third strokes complete the letter s. These are easier to get right than the first stroke because they basically follow the circle shape on our construction grid. The secret to this letter is to make both ‘ends’ of the first stroke not too curved. Because the other two strokes are curved they will compensate and give the overall correct shape.

Finally, we are left with the letters i and j, which are made from one pen-stroke. You just need to remember to curve the end of the stroke when writing the letter j.

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After studying Roman Capitals, next on the list is the Foundational Hand, sometimes called Roman Minuscules. The Foundational Hand are the lower-case letters written beside Roman Capitals.

As with the Roman Capitals we need to study the proportion of the letters before we pick up a calligraphy pen and make a start with some sample sheets. You will produce much better letterforms by learning the structure and proportions of each letter.

The letters of the Foundational Hand have different widths; the obvious example is the letter i compared to the letter m or w. Each letter can be grouped according to its widths. So, instead of having 26 letters of different widths, there are in fact only 2 groups of letters, plus a few odd sized letters to learn.

The Grid To help get these widths correct we can construct a grid, where each letter can be placed inside. This grid is exactly the same as the grid constructed for the Roman Capitals. It consists of a square and inside it a circle that just touches the lines of the square in four places. Within the square, there is also a rectangle. This rectangle is three quarters the size of the square and is positioned in the centre of the square.

Ascenders, Descenders and x-height

Some of the Foundational Hand letters have ascenders and descenders.  Ascenders are strokes that go above the x-height of the letter.  Descenders are the strokes that go below the write-line of the letters.  X-height refers to the height of letters that have no ascender or descender i.e. the height of the letter x.  I guess it could have been called the a-height or o-height etc.

Groups of Letters

The Foundational Hand has two main groups of letters.

The 3/4 Width Group

The letters in this group are a, f, g, h, k, l, n, r, s, t, u, v, x, y and z.  These letters basically fit in to the rectangle part of our grid, which is three-quarters the width of the square.

With many of the letters in this group you will find that they pick-up and leave the circle, within the rectangle. So, the letter a is the width of the rectangle and the curves at the top and bottom of the letterform are from the circle of the grid.
The letter f picks up an imaginary circle plotted above the grid. The overall height of the letter is the same as other letters who have an ascender – b, d etc.
The letter k is quite easy, but if the bottom angled stroke does not extend further out than the top angled line the letter will look like it is about to fall over.

Letters n, r, t, u, v, x, y and z are straight-forward.  The letters v and y are the same except the second stroke extends to the length of a descender when writing the y.
The letter h is the same as the letter n except it has an ascender. The letter l is similar to the letter b, except it is not as wide.

Letter g is tricky. The top circle of the letter is 3/4 width, where as the oval that sits below the write-line is the full width of the grid. Were it the same width, the overall shape of the g would look odd.
In this 3/4 width group we are only left with the letter s, which by far the hardest letter in the group. When writing this letter, remember the underlying circle shape, which the letter s starts on, leaves and then re-joins.

The 7/8 Width Group

The letters in this group are b, c, d, e, p and q.  All these letters are based on the circle, but none of them are the full width of the circle.

In many ways b and d are very similar as are p and q.
Letters c and e are almost full circles.

Odd Groups

We have 5 letters of the alphabet left to construct, but none of them belong to either of our two main groups.

Letters i and j are linear, except j has a curved descender based on a small circle.

The letter m is simply two n letters ‘stuck together’.  The same is true for w which two v letters drawn together.  This actually makes m and w have an overall width of 1.5, which makes them the widest letters in the alphabet.

Finally, the letter o is simply the full circle.

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Serifs are small strokes added to letters to ‘finish’ the letter.  They can enhance the letters, but if produced badly will spoil the letter rather than ‘finishing it’.

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.

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Many calligraphers put all their effort in to producing correctly proportioned letterforms.  Whilst the letters are very important, bad letter and word spacing will distract from the lettering.  Can you imagine looking at a piece of work with beautiful lettering only to be distracted by poor spacing? Spacing can make or break a piece of work.  It is advisable to spend much time learning the correct spacing for the style of writing.If you learn the spacing rules early on you can apply them whilst you are practising your letterforms.  So instead of just writing one letter after another, you also think about where the second letter being practised should start relative to the previous letter.  Spacing rules vary with different styles of writing. With Roman Capitals the space between letters should be such that there is an equal area between the letters.  Letter spacing should be adjusted such that the area between any two letters is equal.  There should be an even-looking space between and around the letters.

Letter Spacing

Two straight letters are furthest apart

If you start with two ‘straight’ letters N and N, there will be an area between these letters.  The two straight letters are 5/8 the height of the letter apart.   So, if you had an x-height of 10mm the distance between the straight letters would be 6mm.If you produced these letters on a piece of graph paper you could add up all the (millimetre) squares and you would know the area between the letters.

A straight and a curved letter are slightly closer together

The distance between a straight letter and a curved letter is adjusted such that the area between the letters is the same as two straight letters. For example, a curved letter O will be will closer to the straight letter N than another straight letter. Why is this?Well, remember, we are dealing with the area between letters and so we have to allow for the space at the top and bottom of the curved letter. All the partial squares along with the whole squares created by our two letterforms needs to add up to the same number of squares (area) as our two straight letters.

Two curved letters are closest together

When writing two curved letters together, for example O and another O they will be close together.  This is because we need to allow for the area above and below each curved letter.  Keeping with the graph paper idea we now have lots of partial squares created by the curved shapes.  However, if we could add all these fragments up, it should still be the same area as the two straight letters.  Some combinations of letters are relatively easy to space, other letter combinations are more difficult. The problems start when you have letters, for example, C followed by a Y or an E next to a J. With the type of combinations you have to consider the space inside the letters. In practice this means some letters are written very close together.  Examples include ‘TT’ ‘RY’. This is because the letters have a lot of space associated with them meaning if the spacing rules were applied there would not be an evenness of space.  The letters are close together because the eye reads part of the space within the letter area together with the interletter space.

Word Spacing

The letter O is used as a guide for the inter-word spacing.  However, this will also need adjusting depending upon the last letter of the word and the first letter of the next word.  This can result in the word spacing being reduced to compensate for the space around some letters.

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Once the proportions of the Roman Capitals have been studied, the next step is to start writing the letters. Each letter is constructed rather than written.  The letters are made up from a combination of pen strokes. With this style of lettering, the pen strokes are only made in a top – down or left – right direction.  The pen is never pushed up. When we studied the proportions of the Roman Capital letters we could group them according to their widths.  Now, we can group the letters according to the order and direction of the pen strokes. The first group consists of the letters C, D, G, O, and Q These letters are based on the circle shape.  This shape is produced with two pen strokes.  If you imagine a clock face, the start of the first stroke is at approximately the 11, and finishes in an anti-clockwise direction at 5.  The second stroke starts again at the 11 and finishes on the 5, but is produced in a clockwise direction. The second stroke on the C and G is shorter and the letters G and Q have a third stroke to complete the letter. The letter D is made from 2 pen strokes.  The first stroke is a vertical down-stroke and then across to give an ‘L’ shape.  The second pen stroke is similar to the second stroke of the other curved strokes.
The second group consists of the letters B, E, F, L, P and R The letter L is straight forward.  This made up from one stroke and is a vertical down-stroke and then across to give an ‘L’ shape.  The letter E also starts like this with a second and third stroke added to complete the letterform. The letter F is just a vertical stroke with the second and third stroke added to complete the shape. The letter B starts the same as the letter L.  Then, the two round circular shapes of the B are produced from one pen stroke.  The letters P and R are based on the letter B, except only the top circular shape is made.  The letter R needs a third pen stroke to complete the shape.
The next group of letters are A, M, V, W, X and Y These letters all include diagonal pen strokes, which always start at the top and goes down. The letter V is made from two diagonal pen strokes.  The letter W is to letter V’s ‘stuck together’. Start the letter M, with a near-vertical pen stroke.  This is followed by the V shape.  The letter is completed with another almost vertical stroke. The letter X is just 2 diagonal strokes that cross.  The letter Yis a shortened V shape, completed with a short vertical stroke. The letter A is in this group, because it is an upside-down V shape, and has a short horizontal pen stroke to complete the letterform.
The letters H, I, J, N, T, U and Z are in the next group. The letters H and N start the same way, with 2 vertical strokes, which are ¾ of the height of the letter apart.  They are completed with a third, straight pen stroke for the H or diagonal for the N. The letter T is straight-forward, after the vertical stroke is produced, a second stroke is made which needs to be in length ¾ the height of the first stroke. The letter Z consists of 2 horizontal ¾ width pen strokes, joined by a diagonal stroke. The letter I is straight-forward! U starts with a vertical line that picks up the underlying circle on the grid.  A second pen stroke is made ¾ of the height of the letter apart. The letter J is made up from 2 pen strokes.  The first is a vertical stroke that stops short of the write line.  The second stroke starts approximately the distance of ½ the height of the letter away from the end of the first stroke.  It curves, touches the write-line and touches the bottom of the first stroke.
Finally, S and K These letters don’t really belong to any of the previous groups. K is made up of 3 straight pen strokes; the first is a vertical stroke, the second stroke touches the first stroke just above the half-way mark.  The third stroke starts where the second stroke finished and goes out slightly further out than the second stroke before touching the write-line. Finally, the letters S, the hardest letter to learn?  This is a half-width letter, so quite narrow.  It may help you to visualise the number 8 when producing the letter.  The first pen-stroke is a ‘snake’ shape and starts just below the body-height of the letter and finishes just above the write-line.  The second stroke, starts at the top of the first stroke and is curved.  Finally, the third stroke starts at the bottom of the first stroke and curves – touching the write-line before it meets up with the end of the first stroke.

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Roman Capitals are usually the first style of calligraphy to be taught to the students of a new class. This is not always the case and there have been debates in the past to which is the best style to start with. Anyway, we are going to study Roman Capitals. We could just pick up a calligraphy pen and make a start with some sample sheets, but this will not produce such good lettering as taking our time and learning the proportions of each letter. Roman Capital Letters have different widths; the obvious example is the letter ‘I’ compared to the letter ‘M’. The good news is that each letter can be grouped according to its widths. So, instead of having 26 letters of different widths, there are in fact only 4 groups of letters.
The Grid To help get these widths correct we can construct a grid, where each letter can be placed inside. The grid consists of a square and inside it a circle that just touches the lines of the square in four places. Within the square, there is also a rectangle. This rectangle is three quarters the size of the square and is positioned in the centre of the square.
Groups of Letters The first group of letters; O, C, D, G, Q are widest letters and all pick up the circle at some point, although obviously O and Q follow the whole circle. The other letters in this group are not the full width of the square. If they were, they would look too big.
The second group of letters; are known as the three-quarter width group because they all fit in the rectangle part of the grid. The letters in this group are H, A, V, N, T, U, X, Y, Z. The letters in this group are probably the easiest to learn.
The third group of letters are known as the half-width group because all the letters fit in approximately half of the grid. The letters in this group are B, P, R, E, F, L, K, S, J. Most people find these letters harder to learn. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, they do not fit in the grid as well as the three-quarter width group letters. Secondly, many of the letters in this group include curved/round pen strokes. i.e. the letters B and S. B, P and R are very similar. To learn the proportions of the letter B, try and visualise 2 circle shapes, one on top of the other. The top circle is slightly smaller than the bottom circle (the centre of these circles has been shown by the 2 red crosses). If the vertical stroke of the letter B started at the edge of the grid the letter would look too wide. Also, if it started on the vertical line of the rectangle the letter would be too narrow. Once you have studied the letter B, the letters P and R become much easier to learn.
The 2 circles used for letter B, can also act as visual aid for the sizes of the different parts of the letters E, F, L and K. If you can imagine squares that fit exactly to the circles you can judge how far out the horizontal strokes on the E, F and L go. Also, from these squares you can judge the length of the two strokes of the letter K. The bottom stroke of the K will go further out than the top stroke. If they were in line then the letter would look like it was about to topple over. The letter S is based on two different sized circles on the right-hand side of the grid. Again the top circle is smaller than the bottom circle. The letter J picks up and leaves the bottom circle to get the hook shape.
We are now only left with three letters; I, M and W. These letters do not belong to any of the three groups because they are all odd sizes. The letter M is the width of the square on our grid, the V shape being exactly the same as the letter V. This means the two vertical strokes of the letter M are in fact not vertical! A common mistake is to make the letter too wide by writing two upside-down ‘V’s.
The letter W is just two V letters ‘stuck’ together. So, this is the widest letter of the alphabet. Finally, we are left with the letter I, which is just a vertical stroke!

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Once the nib has been prepared it is important to set it up correctly.  Some nibs are purchased with a reservoir, but reservoirs for the William Mitchell Square Cut nibs and Leonardt Square Cut Nibs are purchased separately and have to be fitted to the nib.  These reservoirs are usually made of brass making them flexible enough so they can be adjusted.  It is important to fit the reservoir correctly otherwise it can cause problems. If the reservoir is fitted too tight it can affect the tines of the nib causing scratchy pen strokes.   If it is fitted too loosely it will fall off (I’ve lost several down the sink or in the bottle of ink!).  The fit needs to be such that the reservoir stays on the nib but could quite easily fall off.The reservoir can be adjusted by using both thumbs to adjust the little wings that wrap round the nib.

It is usual that each time you fit a reservoir you will need to adjust it for the nib.  Now the reservoir fits the nib correctly you need to make sure the tip of the reservoir is just touching the nib.  Often it is necessary to bend the point of the reservoir a little.

Once the reservoir has been attached to the nib you will see a gap between the reservoir and nib.   The tip of the reservoir should be touching the nib.

Now the reservoir needs to be positioned correctly on the back of the nib. The position of the reservoir will control the ink flow.Start with the reservoir about 2mm away from the tip of the nib. If the ink does not flow very well, slide the reservoir a little closer to the edge of the nib. If the ink flow is too great, reduce the flow by sliding the reservoir away from the nib.

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There has already been a post on this blog about preparing nibs before you start to use them. Using a new nib frequently causes problems. Only the other day I spoke to a customer who was experiencing difficulties try to get the ink flow from a new nib. After a chat they followed the instructions on the preparing a nib post and later emailed back and said it worked.Another method of preparing a nib is to use a naked flame. With this method, the nib is passed back and forth through a naked flame. I have tried this method and the results seem to be the same as using boiling water, so I have always stuck with that. However, the following email extracts prove it can be worth trying different ways.Back in May, a customer contacted us with the ink flow problem. Attached to their email was some photographs that clearly showed the problem.“I am attaching these pictures to illustrate my problem with this nib.You sent me a Leonardt 33 nib. But, as you can see I can’t seem to write a single word.I have ink on the nib but no flow at all. What am I not doing wrong? Any suggestion would be helpful.”As the first photograph clearly shows, the ink was just sitting on the nib. You can see the tip of the nib is still dry. So we recommended the boiling water method. The following day we received an update.“Unfortunately , it is not working for me. The nib cannot write at all.. despite the soaking.”We then suggested the flame method. A couple of days later we receive another email and photograph. It had worked.What I had learnt from this was that it is worth trying different methods on the same nib. Just because once in the past the flame method had been tried and the result had not appeared to be any different to the boiling water method I had not used it since. However, if one method does not work, try another.

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The follow posts have been taken from the old (pre Facebook) Scribblers Community. You may find them useful if you are new to Copperplate.

I’m left handed and want to learn copperplate, will I need left handed nibs or is it immaterial with pointed nibs? This might sound stupid, but I’m only at the “get a dip pen” stage. Martin

No, pointed nibs are all good for left- and righthanded writing.  Nonetheless you will need to experiment and find a different way of writing; since while holding the pen in the left hand, it is leaning to the opposite direction than in the right hand. Don’t let this discourage you, I’m lefthanded too, and I don’t find it particularly difficult For example, turn the paper around to fit the strokes. I usually turn the paper 180 degrees, and letter upside-down, that way my hand is before the letters, not behind them. It’s not too difficult to see your letters upside-down. Gabor

Copperplate is actually EASIER for left-handers than right handers in as much , as you DON’T have to turn the paper at all, just keep writing lines horizontal as usual, and ensure pen holder is aligned in direction of the slope lines ( ie 54 degrees from the horizontal) so nib is in alignment with the slope lines too). Brause EF66 are excellent nibs for copperplate. Gaynor

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Copperplate looks like it is written at speed because the letters are joined (cursive). In fact Copperplate needs to be written very slowly. Although the letters appear joined, the letters are not written as one continuous stroke. They are built up from a series of pen strokes. A good pen control is required to produce the characteristic hairlines and thick strokes.

Ruling-Up

With all styles of Calligraphy it is recommended you first practising writing with a larger text height (x-height). Unlike broad-edged calligraphy, the x-height is not measured in terms of nib widths. Typical x-heights are 4, 5 or 6mm. The ‘normal’ ratio of ascender – x-heights – descender is 3:2:3. Therefore if you have an x-height of 4mm, you would have 6mm for ascenders and descenders. However, these are only guidelines.Copperplate writing has a steep slope, typically 54 degrees from the horizontal. It can be hard to write at such a steep angle (especially if you are right-handed). This is why a right-handed calligrapher will typically use an oblique penholder to help ‘point’ the nib in the right direction. A left-handed calligrapher, holding a straight pen holder will automatically have their nib at an angle close to the required 54 degrees. If you are right-handed, rotating the paper in an anti-clockwise direction can help you achieve the correct pen angle. Left handed calligraphers usually they prefer to keep the paper straight. These are only guidelines – experiment to find the combination of pen holder, nib type and paper angle that is most comfortable for you.It is useful to construct the 54 degree line on you guideline sheet. Once you have constructed the first line it can be easily duplicated across the paper by using the width of the ruler to produce a line parallel to the original line. Now slide the ruler over to this second guideline and draw in the third line. This process can be repeated across the whole page.It is worth spending time accurately producing a guide sheet as it can be photocopied at different enlargement settings to produce several guide sheets at various x-heights. If you do this you will need to have heavy but fine lines. You could use a fine biro pen to do this.  Scribblers guideline generator can help you with ruling up.

Drawing Board

With most styles of Calligraphy the drawing board is at quite a steep angle. With Copperplate writing the board needs to be at a much flatter angle. This makes the up strokes easier and helps prevent the nib from digging in to the paper. A flatter angle also helps ink flow, because the nib will be at a steeper angle to the paper.

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