Calligraphy

by Jane Sullivan

Discover the timeless art of beautiful writing! This introduction to creating calligraphy combines beginner-friendly clarity with thorough guidance and gorgeous examples.

Genres: Art, How To, Nonfiction, Reference, Design

120 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Rebekah Giese Witherspoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gorgeous book demonstrates how to create several traditional calligraphic styles using a broad-nib calligraphy pen: Uncial, Celtic, Carolingian, Gothic, French Batarde, Humanist (very similar to Foundational Hand and Roman Capitals), Italic, and Copperplate.

I love the beautiful full-color photographs of ancient manuscripts that provide an example of each calligraphic style. For example, the Uncial style is illustrated with a photo of the Ashburnham Pentateuch, a Latin translation of the first 5 books of the Bible which was copied at the end of the 6th century using the Uncial style of handwriting that was common at that time. The first 2 lines read: In principio creavit deus caelum et terram (In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth). Wow!!! Following the photo is a step-by-step ductus which demonstrates how to write each letter in the Uncial style, along with written tips and tricks for each letter. I love old Bibles and I love old books so the idea of trying to emulate the calligraphy of those ancient masterpieces is really appealing to me.

What seems to be missing in this book: guidelines about how wide or narrow each letter should be, how much space to allow between letters of one word, and how much space to leave between words.

I’ve been practicing Humanist/Foundational Hand/Roman Capitals with the help of some fabulous YouTube videos by David Nicholls: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

Next I plan to learn Simple Gothic Script from a SkillShare class by Mary-Jane Roussel: https://www.skillshare.com/classes/Si...

I’m 8 days into my calligraphy journey and loving it! I find it very relaxing and plan on using calligraphy to add a few pretty flourishes to my bullet journal and to make greeting cards. Everybody needs a little hobby, and I think I just found one.

[Morphé Soui · Rating 5 out of 5]

great learning book

[Jeremy J Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book for the beginners

[Andrew Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource for learning calligraphy. A simple analysis of where each script comes from and plenty of examples on how to recreate them.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this one! I liked the Celtic lettering!
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