My Slanted Opinion - 1

Here is a shout out to Amy who left a comment on the spooky experiment post. I always enjoy hearing that people become so engrossed in their practice that they *forget* to do their chores. Yay Amy!! She mentioned that she was "a little unimpressed" with the Molly Thorpe book, Modern Calligraphy. I think the main problem with any instructional book when it is written by one person - is that you only get one perspective. And sometimes, an author will leave out an Essential Tip.

We each have a unique path that started when we were about 5 years old and penmanship is something that grows and evolves. We are products of our teachers. Some of us have had between 20 and 30  teachers. I am guessing that Molly has not. But, she does include a ton of valuable information for people who are just starting and want some success at a modern style with nibs and ink. Trust me, it takes a long time to study with 20-30 different teachers.

I am going to go through all three books by single authors and add some information that I think will help everyone get more out of the individual books. The essential tip for the day is slant. Eleanor Winters and Gordon Turner both recommend the 54 or 55 degree slant that is traditional with copperplate.

If Molly Thorpe included any discussion about slant, I have not found it. And when I flip through the book, I see a variety of slants which is a huge no-no in traditional copperplate. It is perfectly fine in modern calligraphy to have a variety of slants. Since Molly does not mention slant (correct me if it is there and I just missed it) I think the reader is missing some essential information. Her block lettering is mostly upright. Most of the time, her slant is about halfway between 90 (which would be straight upright) and the traditional 55-degrees of copperplate. It's a very nice slant. But, the part where she does not even talk about it leaves the reader with some missing pieces to the whole puzzle.

In my discussions with some of the rock stars in the world of calligraphy and lettering, many of them have agreed that most people have a natural slant. And....it can be very beneficial to use your natural slant when you are first learning a particular style.

MUSCLE MEMORY. I talk about it all the time. If your muscles have been cruising along, making the same slant for decades...stick with that slant.

YIN YANG. And even though, I just said to stick with the slant that is your natural slant....now I am going to tell you to try different slants.

WHY DO I CONTRADICT MYSELF? Because it helps you to integrate your muscle memory with your new skill. And this is why I will never write a book. There are too many ways to approach lettering. None of them are right or wrong. It is hard to predict which approach will yield the best results. As Mr. Legend wrote in his comment....the only thing that is a given...is that you'll need to put in some time practicing.

My envelope pictured above is one style that requires very little practice. I wrote amy spencer amy spencer with a very fine pen. Then on the last 3 names, I put in a second stroke wherever the stroke was a downstroke. on *spen* you can see the double strokes. on the *cer* i added some tiny cross strokes. on the second amy, i filled in the double strokes and on the second spencer, i went over the fine line with a bolder pen and put about three layers of extra width to build up the down strokes. so, there you have it.... 3 versions of faux calligraphy. fun. easy. minimum of practice.

Molly Thorpe seems to be doing just fine by using her personal slant (73-degrees) and embracing inconsistency. Gordon Turner has one page (33) where he shows some alternate styles that include different slants. I did not find any examples of variations of slant from Eleanor Winters. She simply recommended 55-degrees.  She explains the math behind the 55-degrees in such detail that your brain could easily explode if you are math phobic. This kind of detail can be very off-putting to beginners. Don't worry. I'll be happy to help you find an easier way if you don't like all that math.

If you are working on traditional copperplate, you might want to try all the lettering, exactly as it is presented in the books...but if your natural penmanship has a different slant, try using your own slant and see what happens. If you want more advice on this topic, leave a comment and I will post more.

With traditional copperplate, it is my opinion that you really need a lot of practice on paper that has slant lines. So, the easiest thing to do is buy a the copperplate practice paper from John Neal.

P01-8. JNB Copperplate/Engrossers Pad 8.5X11in

I prefer the 8.5 x 11-inch pad and will include my reasoning in a separate post.

You can also print out your own paper with guidelines.
http://www.iampeth.com/lessons_guidesheets.php
But the John Neal practice paper is much better paper than the do-it-yourself method.