[Scriptoris] a slight tangent to: "Re: Working on a medieval/modern "fusion" project..."

[Cat Clark]

> (So many of the calligraphy books out there are just a modern 
> calligrapher's interpretation of our period scripts.-L's personal 
> opinion and guilty author!)
> Anyone else wanna share favorites for study/reference?
> Or study techniques/execution short-cuts?

I don't remember seeing anyone mention this book, but I also got back
from a business trip in the UK where personal email access was kinda
sucky, so I could have missed something.

Marc Drogin, Medieval Calligraphy (a Dover book)
there have been criticisms of his redactions but he does have
the good manners to show you all sorts of real examples too
from which you can make your own redactions.

Miner, 2000 Years of Calligraphy, Taplinger, 1965
hard to find but worth it
not a book of redactions but of plates showing period
examples to trace the evolution of letter development over
2000 years; very cool book, tons of cadels too
(I like cadels.  Cadels rock!)

But thinking about what books I really use, I really don't use
any of the "redaction" books (other than Drogin, and only then
to see what he did before I decide what to do myself) since it's so
easy just to make your own redactions.  The only hard part to redacting
your own is finding some good hands to redact which are close in time,
space, usage (ie bookhand, formata or secretary hand) and style
(eg proto-fractur vs anglo-batarde).  Once you have a handful of
hands (sorry, couldn't resist...), then the rest is easy!  Here are links
to one of my favorite redactions, which I call "anglo-norman
secretary hand" as an example of what you  do to make a redaction
of a hand style:
http://www.rocks4brains.com/callig1.pdf (the majescules)
http://www.rocks4brains.com/callig2.pdf (the miniscules)

It's easy, it's even simple, it's fun and it's working right off of the
primary sources.  And when it comes to competition time, if you're
into that sort of thing, it rocks when it comes to research brownie
points. 

Hand redaction: try it today!

You know, it's never really crossed my mind before this, but I
suppose I could teach a workshop on redacting your own hands.
Would people be interested?

ttfn
Therasia, old used scribe
(since some of you haven't met me yet, here's an example of some
of my calligraphy madness: http://www.rocks4brains.com/landolff.html)