May 3, 2010 - Beverly Hills Adult School Copperplate Class #5

ANNOUNCEMENT:  Due to a scheduling conflict, Copperplate class will start at 9:30am next week, Monday 5/10. Copperplate class will be from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm.

Today DeAnn reviewed the friendship exercise and banner.  She then demonstrated Copperplate basic formal capitals.

Review of “friendship” exercise: Issues that students found difficult were spacing and making all the downstrokes the same thickness. Another issue was making all the strokes be the same; for example, making all the #6 strokes the same. DeAnn will be correcting these exercises in detail. She highly recommended that anyone who hadn’t done the friendship exercise find time to work on it. She feels that it helps you to take your Copperplate to the next level, as it really makes you learn how each stroke looks.

DeAnn’s tip:  the larger you’re writing Copperplate, the thicker the downstrokes have to be.

If you’re doing Copperplate for reproduction (e.g. for an invitation), the hairlines can’t be too thin or they’ll fall out when reproduced. Also, you’re usually writing at a larger size for reproduction, so if the hairlines are too thin, they’ll disappear when the piece is reduced.

Homework notes:  For letters like n or p, remember to start the #2 or #4 strokes from the baseline.

For the “o”, there should be no pressure on the right side of the center of the letter.

Project:  Satomi wrote out a sample on the pergamenata paper – it was 70 words. So the text you choose should be about that length. However, if it’s too long, just stop when you come to the end of the template. Don’t worry about finding text that will fit exactly. DeAnn is more concerned about how it looks. Choose text where you like the initial capital letter – this will be what’s decorated.

Question:  Is the entrance stroke always necessary? (for example, on an “a”)
DeAnn:  You should practice always having an entrance stroke. This is more formal. Once you become more proficient, you can decide whether or not to include the entrance stroke based on the context and the letter that comes before it.

DeAnn took a poll of students’ favorite nibs:
Gillot 1068 – 5
Brause Steno – 2
Hiro 40 – 2
Brause EF66 – 2

Copperplate Capitals:  the size is from the base to the ascender. For demonstrating them on the board, DeAnn didn’t write in the waist guideline. See the handout.
When writing the capitals, think OVAL for the strokes. Many of the letters can be visualized as a combination of ovals.

Primary Stem Stroke: This is the thickest of all strokes and starts at the ascender and goes down to the base. No pressure – Pressure – No pressure – Terminal Dot. This stroke should be slightly thicker than the other lowercase downstrokes. The terminal dot is there to stop your eye from continuing to move.

Secondary Stroke: should be the same or less than the thickness of the Primary Stem Stroke. This stroke should curve into the letter so that the eye doesn’t travel away from it.

Remember: Flourishes should be BIG!

Notes on individual letters:
A:  starts at the bottom at the baseline with a terminal dot.

B:  the flourish should be big, it should come down to about halfway to the base.

C:  think of it as 3 intersecting ovals.

D:  unlike the cursive “D” that many of us learned in grade school, if you think of the Copperplate “D” as one big oval, the body of it is a small portion and most of it is the flourish.

E:  like the “C”, think of it as intersection ovals. Swing the lower half out enough to have enough space for the final loop.

F:  start like the "T"; the cross-bar ends in a small loop

G:  unless you know this is the “G”, it may look incomprehensible. Think of the General Mills “G”.

H:  start with a #4 stroke that ends in a diagonal upstroke. It shouldn’t curve too much where the primary stem stroke starts.

Alternate H with a carrot:

I:  Think of the secondary stroke as an oval shape.
J:  Primary stem stroke goes down to the descender
K:  the secondary stroke should be parallel to the Primary Stem stroke
L:  curve last stroke back into itself, not off into space. You want your eye to be brought back into the letter.

M:  starts at the bottom at the baseline with a terminal dot. Try to keep it pretty skinny.
N:  start at the bottom at the baseline with a terminal dot. Think of the downstroke as an s-shape. The final upstroke ends in a terminal dot above the ascender line and should be parallel to the initial upstroke.
O:  Think of the letter as a big oval with a curvy flourish to end it

P:  make the flourish big

Q:  think of this as an oval plus a figure-8
R:  the secondary stroke should be parallel to the Primary Stem Stroke
S:  similar to the “L” but ends with a terminal dot

T:  if the cross bar of the “T” seems too thin, go over it with a little more pressure
U: the initial stroke curves back slightly, it doesn’t go straight down. Start the curve early so that you have a nice big triangle

V:  like the “H”, start with a flourish similar to the #4 stroke but ending on a diagonal stroke; then downstroke. Upstroke ends with a terminal dot above the ascender line. Focus your eyes on the location where the terminal dot should go and your hand should follow. “Look where you’re going.”
W: start with a #4 stroke that ends in a diagonal upstroke. Like the “V”, but don’t put too much white space between the “V”-spaces; letter should be pretty narrow.
X:  First stroke ends in a terminal dot. Second stroke should overlap at the center, not be double-wide through the center. If you find that difficult, then don’t pressurize the second side.

Y:  doesn’t go down to the descender, but only to the base. Ends in a terminal dot.

Z:  this is DeAnn’s modern version of a “Z”. The last touch is a “carrot” flourish: set – press – pull and release.

Alternate "Z"s:

Historically correct "Z" that DeAnn finds ugly, so she prefers not to use it:

Observe where those ovals sit in relation to the letter. Practice drawing ovals in the air with your whole arm to get a feel for them. The capital letters should not have small flourishes.

Addressing Envelopes using the Ampersand symbol: all these symbols for “and” are variations of the Latin “et” which means “and”.

These ampersand symbols are slightly taller than the waist-line:

Numbers:  all sit on the base line and are slightly taller than the waist. By the time Copperplate was developed, we were writing Arabic numbers with Latin letters, so they didn’t really go together very well. Numbers could be “made up” to go with various calligraphic hands.

A graceful way of putting “#” on an address:  use “No”

Old-fashioned way of writing numbers, where some dropped below the baseline:

Some Capitals are connectable, meaning they can end in the entrance stroke to the next letter, but others aren’t.
Connectable Capitals: A, F (both), H, I (both), J, K, M, R, U, X, Z

Not-connectable: B, C, D, E, F (depends on next letter), G, I (depends on next letter), L (historically connectable, but DeAnn recommends not to connect), N, O, P, Q, S, T, V, W, Y

HOMEWORK:  Practice writing Capitalized words. Never write Copperplate words all in capitals! See DeAnn’s website for alphabetical Flower Names.

Journaling at Bev Hills

Connie Furguson-Card is an awsome teacher and does these really lovely watercolor illustrations that I wanted to show my Journaling students. These are for inspiration only. I'll take more pictures of the things we're doing in class. I'm so proud of the progress that the students are making. And we've all upped our confidence level.

April 26, 2010 - Beverly Hills Adult School Copperplate Class #4

ANNOUNCEMENT:  Due to a scheduling conflict, Copperplate class will start at 9:30am for the next 2 weeks. So for Mondays 5/3 and 5/10, Copperplate class will be from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm.

Today DeAnn reviewed common problems and demonstrated drawing a word in the Copperplate lowercase alphabet.

For warm-up, we practiced writing alphabet sentences. DeAnn took questions from the class about any problems that occurred during the week’s practice.

Review of writing “x”:  start with a #4 stroke but make the downstroke a diagonal.  Imagine parallel lines running  down the center of the arches of the #4 stroke. Then start the initial dot of the upstroke slightly above the base line which intersects the imaginary center of the arch. The alternate “x” is a #2 stroke that curves inward and ends with a terminal dot. Then a “c”-like stroke.

Example of a word with double-f:

Good habits:  put your rag on your lap so that it’s easily accessible. Wipe your nib off every 20 minutes to prevent it from getting clogged up. Be aware of your posture: is your whole right arm on the table? Is your left hand placed above your writing as a weight? The nib should be in the direction of the slant lines. Otherwise the nib will eventually get tweaked if you’re not writing with it in the direction of the slant lines.

Be aware of the pen angle at which you’re writing. If you’re holding the pen at too high of an angle, then pressurizing the nib won’t give you good downstrokes. If you’re holding the pen at too low on an angle, your upstrokes may be too thick.

If you’re having problems seeing where you’re writing clearly, try writing on the board at an angle. This may give you a better view of your paper.

Diagnosing  the problem when you’re having problems writing with a nib:  If you’re having problems writing with the sepia (brown)  or black ink, switch over to the vermillion. If you’re able to write with the vermillion ink, then it’s probably the ink’s fault, not the nib.  If the ink is too thick, it won’t flow smoothly down from the reservoir even after you’ve just dipped it. Add a drop or 2 of water until it flows better. If the black ink just runs out of the nib, add a drop of gum Arabic until it sticks better to the nib.

Tips for really difficult nibs: some nibs like the Hiro 40 are really difficult to “break-in”. If the ink still doesn’t stick after rubbing it with gum Arabic many times, try sanding the nib with very fine sandpaper or crocus cloth (Armenian bole pressed into cloth), available at a hardware store. Sand both sides of the nib. This is to roughen up the surface so that the ink will stick better. Try dipping the nib into the ink – it shouldn’t bead up and roll off.

As a very last resort, use a match to heat the nib.  Place the nib into your holder very shallowly so it sticks out a lot. Then light the match & pass the nib through the flame just twice.

WARNING:  Don’t heat it too much, it ruins the nib so that the first time you write with it afterward, the tips bends backwards.

Friendship Exercise: Use a pencil that’s been sharpened. Have an eraser handy. DeAnn recommends the Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser. Cut pieces off with an X-acto knife so that you have an eraser piece with sharp corners and edges. This enables you to erase with better precision.

Study the exemplar and the “friendship” handout. The x-height is 1-inch. First trace the word “friendship” on your paper. Pay close attention to where the thicks and thins start as you increase and decrease pressure. Study the width of the downstrokes and the spacing.  Work one letter at a time. After you’re comfortable with tracing “friendship” from the handout, try drawing it yourself on the 1-inch x-height guide line sheet. Then draw your name. DeAnn will review this very critically next week. Don't worry about capitals yet, DeAnn will go over capitals next week.

Banner paper: DeAnn handed out yellow or blue banner paper for us to write our names. Once you’ve drawn your name on the cotton comp paper at the 1-inch x-height, draw it on the banner paper. Use the C-thru ruler to make your guidelines. If the x-height is 1-inch, then the space to the ascender & descender is 1 1/2 inches (Remember the 3 : 2 : 3 ratio). To make the slant guide lines, lay the banner paper over the 1-inch x-height guideline & draw some slant lines with the C-thru ruler.

See pictures of banners from last year’s Copperplate class here. Scroll down the page to entry entitled "Copperplate Banners" and dated Monday, June 1, 2009.

HOMEWORK:  Do “friendship”  in pencil using the 1-inch x-height handout.  It’ll be helpful to trace DeAnn’s “friendship” handout a couple times. Also draw your name (first, last, or both is OK) using the 1-inch x-height guideline. Then write your name  on the colored banner paper DeAnn gave us. Don't worry about using capitals yet.

This week’s GOAL: Learn how Copperplate works.

Next week: Capitals.

Project text: think about what you want to write for your project. It could be a poem, song lyrics, quote, or other text. From Satomi’s example, it should be about 60 – 75 words.

April 19, 2010 - Beverly Hills Adult School Copperplate Class #3

Today DeAnn reviewed ratio and demonstrated connecting the lowercase letters to form words and sentences. The handout was the project template.

For warm-up, we practiced writing the letters (not words). Use the large guidelines, use a different nib, and use black or sepia ink.  Don’t write the same letter 20 times. Write a letter once, then study the Exemplar and compare them. If you find something to improve, write it once or twice more. Then move on to the next letter. It’s more helpful to study the Exemplar & your written letter than just writing it many times without any observation.

If the ink beads off and rolls right off the nib, rub more gum Arabic onto the nib. Really rub it in using your fingers. Don’t worry about getting gum Arabic on your hands, it’s non-toxic and will wash off.

The Gillot 1068 nib is made of thinner metal than the others so it may be loose in your pen holder. Flatten it slightly (be careful not to flatten it too much!) just at the very end (NOT the tip!) with small needle-nose pliers.

What is Ratio: In Copperplate, pen width doesn’t determine x-height (height of the letter “x”) like it does for chisel-point nibs. Instead, the ascender and descender length depends on the ratio and x-height being used.  On the Large 1/4” Guideline sheet that we’re currently using, note the “(3 : 2 : 3)”. 1/4” is the x-height and the ratio shows that the ascender is 1 1/2 times the x-height (3 : 2 : 3 = 1.5 : 1 : 1.5).  So if the x-height is 1/4” (= 2/8”), then the ascender is 3/8” from the waist and the descender is 3/8” from the base.

If you’ve taken DeAnn’s class before and are familiar with boxes in the 8x8 grid paper, think of the ratio as boxes. 3 : 2 : 3 means that the x-height is two boxes tall, the space from the waist to the ascender is 3 boxes, and from the base to the descender is 3 boxes. So the ratio of 2 : 1 : 2 means that if the x-height is 2 boxes, then the ascender is 4 boxes and so is the descender (2 : 1 : 2 is the same as 4 : 2 : 4).

The ratio of 3 : 2 : 3 is normal.  DeAnn addresses envelopes in this ratio. 2 : 1 : 2 is elegant. This ratio leaves more room for flourishing if you’re creating an invitation or writing  a poem. 1 : 1 : 1 is simple. This is like writing in a spiral bound notebook.

Practice with all nibs and with the different inks. If a particular nib isn’t working for you, try another one.  As DeAnn says “Work the problem.” The purpose of working with different nibs and inks is to become aware of which nibs work better with which inks in certain situations.  Vermillion is great to work with, but not a very practical color to use for actual projects in real life. In a later class, DeAnn will bring in a variety of papers for us to try so we can see how different nibs and inks react to these papers.

Nib Identification Chart:  As you try the different nibs, write down your observations on the Nib Identification Chart. If the Gillot 404 is medium sharp and medium flexible, rate the sharpness and flexibility of the other nibs in comparison. Also make any other notes that make a particular nib different from the others.

Notes on individual nibs:
Gillot 404:  medium sharp, medium flexible
Gillot 1068:  medium sharp, stiff
Gillot 303:  very sharp, very flexible
Hiro 40:  sharp, flexible. Known as the “blue pumpkin”. You may have to rub gum Arabic on this many times as it doesn’t want to hold on to ink. DeAnn has also heated it with a match and sanded it. It her writes best on paper that isn’t textured.
Hiro 40:  dull, stiff. On smooth paper it doesn’t make thin hairlines or thick downstrokes, but it works very well on watercolor paper.
Brause Steno:  medium sharp, medium flexible. This is DeAnn’s favorite for most papers. Its tip is less square edged than the Gillot 404 so it doesn’t get hung up in the paper. It doesn’t make as thin hairlines, but works well in addressing envelopes.
Brause EF66:  sharp, very very flexible. This is best for big writing because its flexibility can create thick downstrokes.

Sepia recipe:  Add 6 drops of Higgins Eternal (with gum Arabic) to half an inkwell of Vermillion. Other black inks don’t mix well with the Vermillion.  For example, black sumi ink won’t blend with the Vermillion.

Connecting letters into words: start with the sentence “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Don’t worry about capitals yet. To connect the individual letters, the last stroke becomes the entry stroke for the next letter. For “the”, only the “t” has an actual #7 stroke. The #3 stroke of the “t” becomes the #7 for “h”, the #4 stroke of the “h” becomes the #7 for the “e”. Leave a little space between the exit strokes and the #7 entry strokes, just enough to separate the words. The sentence shouldn’t look like a list of words but a sentence.

Stroke #9 exit: for the letters b, v, and w, the initial dot should be on the inside of the previous stroke. Try to exit at 3:00 to make a smooth connection to the next letter. The #9 exits above are incorrect.

Space the letters so that the whitespaces are all equivalent. The downstrokes should all be the same width and the same distance apart so that it looks like true picket fence spacing.

Special cases: for the “f” in a word like “off”, start the #9 stroke a little above the base line in its usual place; don’t worry that it doesn’t cross the #7 stroke. For double “t”s, cross both in one stroke.

Start thinking  about what text you want to use in your project. It could be a poem or song or a quote, like an excerpt from something longer. It should be about 50 words.

HOMEWORK:
1. Large guidelines
2. medium guidelines
3. use all nibs (don’t forget to label your paper & nib ID chart)
4. use black, sepia, vermillion
5. write alphabet sentences (no capitals)

April 12, 2010 - Beverly Hills Adult School Copperplate Class #2

Today DeAnn reviewed last week’s information and demonstrated writing the Copperplate lowercase alphabet.

For warm-up, we practiced the strokes with the Gillot 404 nib. On the Nib Identification Chart, label the Gillot 404 nib as “medium sharp, medium flexible.” DeAnn reminded us to maintain the correct posture – elbow on the table, left hand at the top of the page, pen nib in line with the slant line.

Review: The pen should be held so that the nib is in line with the slant-lines on the guideline sheet. The slant lines aren’t for spacing, only as guides for the slant. The letters are written on the line with the black rectangle at the beginning. This is the waist-base line. The line above the waist is the ascender, the line below the base is the descender. Strokes  #1 (most of the time), #2, #3, #4,  #7, #8,  and #9 are written between the waist and the base. Stroke #5 goes up to the ascender, stroke #6 goes down to the descender.

Spacing: the goal is for the whitespaces of strokes #2, #3, #4 and #8 to be the same so that your Copperplate looks like picket fence spacing, very even and regular. This will be the basis of flourishing that you’ll learn later. If the picket fence foundation isn’t strong and steady, the flourishing will look weak.

Student questions:
How much space should be in the loop of the #5 or #6 stroke? Enough so that there isn’t a dark spot there. For example, if DeAnn is addressing  envelopes, she’ll make the spaces smaller to take up less space. In any case, the white space of stroke #5 should be equivalent to that of stroke #6.

Nibs: from now on, practice with all the nibs. If you’re having a nightmare with a particular nib, switch! Note on your Nib Identification Chart your observations of each nib, using the Gillot 404 as the measure for “medium sharp, medium flexible.” For example, you may find the EF 66 nib “very flexible” compared to the Gillot 404. Become familiar enough with your nibs that you can recognize them by sight. For example, the Gillot 404 has a ridge and the Gillot is shorter than the Gillot 1068. Learning your nibs is important because one nib doesn’t work for everything. Depending on the effect you want to achieve, different nibs will be able to do the job. For example, DeAnn prefers the Gillot 1068 or Brause Steno for envelope addressing because those are stiffer, duller nibs.

Lowercase alphabet: DeAnn had us write the stroke numbers and notes for each letter on the Copperplate Stroke Sequence handout. Remember: all the downstrokes should be the same width. All the whitespaces should be the same. DeAnn does pick up her pen with each stroke. The Copperplate exemplar that’s in color contains a lot of information – study the notes DeAnn has written on it.


Notes on individual letters:
a: 7 – 8 – 3.  The entrance stroke #7 goes up 2/3 of the way to the waist. The outer edge  of the #8 stroke doesn’t overlap the #7, but meets it. Then the #3 stroke should not overlap, but just kiss the #8 stroke so the the whitespace of #8 is still oval.
b: 7 – 5 – 3 – 9:  #7 goes up to the waist, then jog over to make the #5 stroke. The downstroke going all the way to the base will cover the jog-over. #9 should come down from the waist to exit at 3:00. If it’s too high, it’ll be difficult to connect to the next letter.
c:  7 – 8 but leave open – dot.
d:  7 – 8 – long 3: stroke #3 starts halfway between the ascender and waist and should just kiss #8.
e:  7 – jog-over & 8: all the #8 strokes should be the same width, so be careful not to make the jog-over too small.
f:  7 – jog-over & long 5 – 9: stroke #5 ends halfway between the base and descender. Start stroke #9 a little above the base-line, then touch the baseline before surving upward.
g:  7 – 8 – 6:  the loop of stroke #6 should cross below the baseline to avoid a dark spot.
h:  7 – jog-over – 5 – 4:  start stroke #4 from the base line, go upward along edge of wet ink. This creates a better connection; you don’t want to start stroke #4 near the waist – this creates an awkward jog from #5’s downstroke.
i:  7 – 3, then dot: the dot on the “i” and “j” is also called a jot or a tittle. The dot should be the same width as the downstroke.
j:  7 – 6, then dot.
k:  special case: 7 – jog-over & 5 – upstroke with terminal dot – modified #3
l:  7 – jog-over & 5 – 3
m:  2 – 2 – 4. For the 2nd #2 stroke and #4, slide up the edge of the wet ink. All the whitespaces should be the same width.
n:  2 – 4. Same as for “m”.
o: 7 – 8 – 9. Start the #9 at about 2:30 so that it comes out at 3:00
p:  7 – long 1 – 4. Stroke #1 should start halfway between the ascender and waist. It should end halfway between the base and descender.
q:  7 – 8 – 6 (backwards loop): the downstroke of #6 should just kiss #8, not overlap. The loop should not touch the downstroke.
r:  special case: 7 – loop – modified #3. The loop is above the waist with no pressure on the upstroke; fill the loop on the downstroke. This is the French “r”. The English “r” is a #2 – loop.

bad r: make the modified #3 stroke smooth, not a corner.

s:   special case: 7 – loop – curvy downsroke with terminal dot – 7. Downstroke starts with little pressure, increase to full pressure for belly of “s”, then no pressure before the terminal dot. Pick up pen to make the final #7 stroke.
t:  7 – long 3 – crossbar. Start stroke #3 halfway between ascender and waist. Crossbar should be slightly longer on the right side.
u:  7 – 3 – 3.
v:  4 – 9. Dot of #9 should be inside #4.
w:  7 – 3 – 3 – 9. Dot of #9 should be inside #4.
x:  special case:  4 with diagonal downstroke – upstroke with initial dot and terminal dot. The alternate x is a modified #2 that curves inward with a terminal dot, then an open #8 (like a "c") stroke.

y:  4 – 6 or 7 – 3 – 6. Loop of #6 should cross below the base. Use alternate “y” depending on previous letter.
z:  special case:  2 with loop at end – 6. It’s OK for the #6 loop to go beyond the top half – don’t squish it.

Preparing black ink for Copperplate: the Higgins Eternal black as-is doesn’t work well in the Copperplate nibs. Fill a dropper bottle almost full with Higgins Eternal. Then add 25 drops of Gum Arabic into it. Don’t shake to mix; use the end of your pen holder to stir it. Label the dropper bottle with a sticky label that says “Higgins Eternal + 25 drops Gum Arabic” to distinguish it from plain black ink.

Mix sepia ink: Vermillion ink with a few drops of Higgins Eternal makes a sepia-colored ink. Fill one of the inkwells about halfway with Vermillion ink, then add 6 drops of black ink from your Higgins Eternal + gum Arabic dropper bottle. Stir with the end of your pen holder. It may not mix right away; wait a day and the color will look more blended. Add less or more black ink for a lighter or darker shade of brown.

HOMEWORK:
1. Practice the letters
2. Try different nibs
3. Label the writing (also label the nib ID chart)
4. Use black & vermillion ink. & sepia

If you get confused and discouraged, just go back one step and practice the strokes. Practice the letters slowly and carefully and think of all the stroke numbers.  It may be helpful to trace the letters of the exemplar.