[Scriptoris] Calligraphy vs. Handwriting, was: Need help -- not too proud to beg

[Elaine Crittenden]

Being a "calligraphy type," I am so sorry you had such a bad experience in
school with "Handwriting."

(Qualifications/philosophy)
I say, as a professional modern calligrapher of more than thirty years's
experience, one trained by international pro's which include Donald Jackson,
calligrapher of the St. John's Bible project, that handwriting and
calligraphy are as much alike as chalk and cheese.

Calligraphy is much different. It is basically drawing, not writing.


I have never understood why illumination artists distance themselves from
being calligraphic artists. Calligraphers still have to repeat patterns (All
letters in a hand are based on the hand's "o" shape, you know.), watch for
even spacing of the negative shapes (where ink ISN'T), and keep the lines
straight (at the tops and bottoms--and some "middles"--of the letters),
among other things, like knowing the difference between pen nibs being held
at 30 degrees as opposed to 45 or even 20 to get certain stroke widths, if
you really want things to look in the superlatives. If that's not like
controlling the pressure and direction of a brush stroke, I'll give up one
day's chocolate allotment!

Did you know that how close the letters are to each other (loose, medium,
tight) and how close the lines are to each other (interlinear spacing)is
called the "color" of the page? Squinting your eyes, look at the difference
between a page of tightly-packed gothic/black letter/textura lettering and
one of, say, italic. The gothic is almost a dark gray as a page's "text
block," right? What about the grisaille (sp?) period for illumination? The
only real differnce is that the calligrapher's strokes are farther apart and
have to be legible, as well! ;-DDDD

Mundanely, I get a minimum of $20.00 per hour, because people in the modern
world still ask for calligraphers. I have very few commissions asking for
illumination.

The skill of being able to do calligraphy is easily taken into the modern
world. Why not kill two birds with one stone--pleasure at the "doing" and
bringing in a little extra money to buy more books so research for SCA
projects can be done at home instead of having to get out and go to the
library (since most libraries don't normally let people study at all hours)?

If you can draw, you can callig!---If you can handwrite, well, you have my
congratulations. (she said, snobbily sneering and with a wicked giggle...)

Now.....All you illuminators, go seek your (penultimate) scribe and say, "I
want to expand my skill as an artist. I want to be a calligrapher!!!"

VIVAT CALLIGRAPHERS!

;-)

HL Lete Bithespring
SCA scribe and modern Calligrapher for Bridezillas, etc. ;-)
Steppes, Ansteorra

----------
>From: Tamberlin <tamberlinofnk at yahoo.com>
>To: Scriptoris <scriptoris at ansteorra.org>
>Subject: [Scriptoris] Need help -- not too proud to beg
>Date: Tue THJul 12,2005,1:10 PM
(snip)
> Oh & I'm willing to bet that if any of you calligraphy
> types would be willing to teach a calligraphy 101 the
> autocrats wouldn't mind the offer at all :) (memories
> of turning in pages & pages & pages of nothing but
> lines in school still haunt my dreams)
>
> Lady Cunovinda ingen Choinnich
> aka Tamberlin
> Northkeep, Ansteorra
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