The Pen And Ink Book Free Downloadable Worksheets

FREE downloadable practice sheets You will find the free downloadable worksheets in the Lettering Crate.

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The Pen And Ink Book How To Hold Your

Lets have a quick overview of what you will be learning in this articletutorial Tools and materials needed Preparations how to hold your pen how to sit Sizing and angles of the Copperplate script Writing rules and basic strokes FREE downloadable practice sheets A few extra tips additional resources Final words.

In traditional Calligraphy, the fundamental and specialized tools are The pen holder Nibs Ink And paper.

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There are different ways of preparing your nibs, and the process is quite straight forward.

One way is to simply take some rubbing alcohol and rub it all over the nib, then you can just wash it off and dry it with a paper towel.

However, in Calligraphy, holding a pen correctly is a critical factor that ensures smoothness while writing, and also prevents pain that can be caused for long periods of writing.

The tip of the thumb is at the position of the first joint of the index finger.

The first joint of the middle finger comes in contact with the pen holder.

The ring finger and the pinky curls inwards, place next to the middle finger.

Posture affects eyesight and body balance as you write, and below are some notes for posturing: Keep your back and neck up straight, slightly lean towards the upper part of your body Put both feet on the floor with your knees at a right angle (90) to balance your body Place both arms on the table when writing, the right hand holding the pen and the left hand holding the paper Keep your elbows perpendicular and place them on the edge of the table (do not write on a round table) I highly recommend you checking out this video by Paul Antonio where he covers the topic more in-depth, and you can also have a visual example of how to sit correctly.

There isnt a fixed size of the letters, however, maintaining the ratio is the most essential element.

General letter height structure is divided into 3 parts The central body part is also known as the x-height determines the size of the minuscules (lowercase letters) The bottom part is for descenders The top portion is for ascenders.

Keep in mind The ratio of letter height in Copperplate is 1.5x: x: 1.5x Below you can see an example.

This would mean that the sizes would be Ascender 1.5 inches X-height 1 inch Descender 1.5 inches The angle for the letters Copperplate letters are always inclined to the right, the inclination ranges from 52 to 60 degrees from the baseline.

Ok, now that we covered the very basics we can move towards the writing part.

To make your writing even smoother and more comfortable feel free to twist the page, so your nib is pointing in the direction of the slant lines it is better to turn the paper than your wrist.

The general rule of Copperplate is to write the upstrokes thin (without pressing the pen) and the downstrokes thick (pressing the pen).

All letters in one group are similar in term of shape and usually encompass a specific basic stroke.

Lower case letters in Copperplate Script includes 7 main basic strokes.

Mastering these 7 basic strokes permits writing almost every lowercase letter in the alphabet, except for letter r, s, x and z (these letters belong to a select group which contains particular strokes).

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