Introduction to Copperplate Calligraphy for Beginners (Part 1)

hi today i'm going to give you an introduction on copperplate calligraphy um the tools i'm going to be using today um as you can see i'm using an oblique holder and the nip it's called um leona principal extra fine for today and the ink i'm using is walnut um walnut ink and i bought the walnut crystals and i mixed it with water uh to create the ink okay uh if you go to my instagram account um you'll find a category called calligraphy guide sheets and in there you can download as a zip folder with a collection of blank guide sheets for different calligraphy styles okay so for this one today uh the guidelines look more or less like that yeah and [Music] let's explain the important things about copper plate so first of all with copper plate we have five defined areas or units to be working with as you can see in here the middle section it's called the x high and then we have two heights for the ascenders and also that one belongs to the cup height and two lengths for the descenders okay the second important thing about copper plate is uh making sure that all our lettuce will follow this strongest land in this case today we are working with 55 degree slant and the next thing is obviously looking at this tool because this tool looks very very different to a regular peno pencil so regarding this tool just a note that i'm using the oblique holder because i'm a right-hander but if you are a left-hander you don't need to use this holder you will use a straight holder with a straight nip okay so in my case i'm a right-hander and i'm using this because it's helping me to get the angle of the writing and then i'm holding this pen with three fingers as you see and the three fingers are really really close to this elbow here so the my fingers are positioning very very close to the elbow uh secondly the position of the pen on my hand so this is the regular position how we will be holding a regular pencil but in this case i very much recommend holding the pen a lot higher so mostly align to my knuckle lines here okay not everyone will be exactly holding the pen in the same area maybe a little bit lower maybe a little bit higher but mostly higher than the regular position of a pencil in this area on my hand next thing that is very important as well is to make sure that your paper is on an angle so in here the position that i'm using to write the paper is more or less at 45 degrees from my table and my arm is parallel to this 45 degrees so this angle of the paper and my arm are exactly in the same position in here obviously i'm a right-hander but if you are a left-hander try out to turn the paper on the side and see how you feel obviously on the other side in here okay otherwise you can also write with the paper parallel to the table but being a right hander i find that it is a lot easier for me to turn the paper on a 45 degree angle in here like that um now how are we going to make sure that we follow this strongest land for the writing okay so as i mentioned my pen is a little bit higher my fingers are really close to the elbow position and now the third thing that is very important in here i'm gonna remove that is the position of the pen and i have to make sure as you can see in here that my pen is completely parallel to the slant to the diagonal lines so when i'm writing my pen is not there or there which is almost perpendicular to this length my pen is always sitting on the same line as the slant and now when i apply pressure you will see how the nip splits and this nip is quite flexible so it will split nearly three millimeters okay if you are a beginner with copper plate instead of using the nip i'm using in here i very much recommend you to be using an eco g or a zebra g okay so these two options um not this one this one these two options are very much recommended if you're a beginner so i will leave the notes on this video uh because these nibs are a little bit less flexible and easier to control at the beginning if you're a beginner with copper plate okay now what i'm going to do is i'm going to place a blank paper on top so i can see the lines through as you can see here i'm gonna secure the pen i'm gonna secure the paper the two guidelines next to each other and now for you to see it easier i'm gonna turn my camera so that you can see my letters completely upright yeah and i'm gonna go a little bit closer to the paper as well so that you can see what i'm writing a little bit easier okay like that and then i'm going to focus excellent and lock the focus in here so we have the nip the paper the ink and now we are gonna start writing okay so i'm gonna talk about the basic movements uh for the lowercase alphabet so from here uh the movements i'm going to be doing and again pay attention that the nip has to be always following the slant line okay so the nip is not there or there but is always parallel so to start i'm going to removing the pen very very soft against the paper creating a really really thin up stroke okay i'm going up and touching the paper very very very soft applying absolutely no pressure i'm not using that's one unit of my x high and in this case it's two units and i'm going to go up from the base of the x high to the long ascender line okay just warming up with the movements um now i'm going down and still not applying absolutely any pressure so i'm starting inside the x high i'm now using the shorter center line till the base of the x high and now i'm using the three units from the long ascendant line till the baseline okay that's just a warming exercise now what i'm doing next is i'm going to start to apply pressure okay so with copper plate every time we go up it's going to be a very soft thin movement going up and every time we go down it's going to be a thick movement and let's try and see how much we can press okay so now i'm gonna go down i'm gonna use the area inside the x high only first so thick movement i'm gonna go up till the next line for the shorter centers and press again and i'm gonna go up all the way till the long ascended line and follow the slant all the way down okay the most important part in here is trying to get a thickness across all these area that is very consistent so that we don't have thin and fix so let's try to press a lot more now just to see the difference okay you see the difference between middle pressure and high pressure and maybe i can even do higher than that and get it a little bit thicker okay for copper plate it is not important how much we press we need to decide how much we press okay so this is different styles in terms of how strong are you applying pressure and you will need to decide which one represents better your style of copper plate okay so any of these will be fine it's just deciding which one we want and creating consistency okay um now let's start with the first letter forms so i'm gonna start with letter i and for letter i in the lowercase alphabet i'm going to go up with a very soft movement and then i will be going down following the slant and then i will be releasing the pressure completely before i'm turning around the corner okay so we have this movement up and then i will be going down okay so let's put the movement together i'm gonna go out really really soft i'm gonna turn to the right to make sure the top of my eye is flat and i'm turning to the right even one millimeter or less than that and it is good enough to get a flat top and then from here i'm gonna be pressing down following the slant and quickly releasing pressure to turn around the corner okay so with this first movement we need to look at a couple of things first of all we need to look at a point that i call reference point which is happening halfway inside the x high and we need to look at this point for a couple of reasons okay the first of all is because this i call this a meeting point and it is the point where the thin and thick stroke meets or the thin and thicker stroke goes away so this is going to be consistent across all the letters we are going to be doing the same meeting point halfway inside the x high it's also for the exit stroke so this exit stroke is going to be long up to more or less half of the x height in here in this section now we need to place the dot or title of the eye so normally the dot will be sitting between the top of the shorter centers and the top of the x high also in the middle so i'm gonna be placing [Music] a small dot in the middle between the top of the x high and the top of the shoulder center line okay in some cases this dot will be maybe higher or lower depending what we are writing and in some cases i tend to do an elongated shape which might not be classically copper plated but i still do it because i like the look of it okay so now to start doing letter i and to make sure that we have this meeting point in the right place it might be beneficial to just do a small mark like i did now uh in the center of the x i and with this small mark i'm going to be crossing the reference point the meeting point i'm gonna go up very very soft top of the x high turning to the right applying pressure and releasing and from here dot or don't get the shape for letter i okay depending on the you see how much i pressed in here and how much i pressing here so the thick strokes are really different and this is very much worth taking care of okay so do i want to go with this look or do i want to go with this look that is a lot cena okay now let's repeat this movement again let's go into letter u by repeating letter i twice so again i'll do a tiny mark in the center of the x height for me to have as a reference point and then i'm gonna go up really thin going to the right even one millimeter or less going down releasing the pressure and going up again going to the right pressing down releasing and by repeating the movement of letter i i obtain letter u okay and now for the first time we have the first letter with a width you see how the meeting point is roughly on both places the same and by having the same area i'm obtaining this triangle shape or negative space in here in both of the um negative spaces of letter u okay so how white are my letters in the copperplate alphabet in the lowercase all these letter forms are based on the oval shape and the oval shape is basically an oval that the height is two times the width and this is a very good and this is a very good um measurement for understanding the proportions of this oval and also for picturing the width of this o because this all is framing my oval okay and i have to see that the width uh the height is twice the width as a measurement here okay uh now let's do more shapes let's do letter j so letter j it's by definition a long eye so the shape at the top of the j is exactly the same as the shape of the eye so very very thin going up uh flat top and then from here following this land and this time i'm going to go all the way till the very long descended line i'm going to go around crossing the center sorry crossing on the baseline of the x high and the dot in the same direction okay so differences this time we are doing a letter form that has three units okay this is the x high and in here is the short descender line and the long the center line and we are placing the pen and going all the way to the along the center line in here now i release pressure before turning around the corner so in terms of pressure what i'm doing here is applying most of my pressure in this section and then from here from the shoulder center line i'm starting to release pressure preparing to go around the corner okay this area here it's called the loop so let's do this again and repeat the movement of letter j i'm gonna take a little bit of ink okay and i will repeat it again so notice that the reference point is happening in the center of the x high again so going up very thin turning to the right applying pressure to go down parallel to the slant starting to release pressure going around the corner going up really thin crossing on the baseline of the x high and exit and now dot or elongated shape for dj uh the next thing we will need to take care is we are looking for consistency so we are going to have to take care of the width are very similar and the loops are going to be looking very similar so in this case this one is a little bit bigger and we need to decide which one do we go with okay so we are looking for consistency across this alphabet now the next letter form we are going to be doing is letter t and letter t same as letter j same as letter i it starts with the same movements so not is again the meeting point halfway inside the x high and the same is going to happen for letter t okay so letter d has the movements of a letter i with the difference that is a little bit taller so this time i'm gonna go all the way up to the first or short ascendant line in here i'm gonna repeat the same movement i did with leather ice and js to get a flat top so i'm going up and i'm going to move to the right even if it's one millimeter to ensure that i have a flat top from here i'm going to be pressing down following the slant and rounding around the corner and exit okay so meeting point roughly in the middle uh make sure you release pressure before turning around the corner and now we need to place the part of this t and to place the bar of this t you can either do a straight line like that in the middle between the top of the x high and the top of the short ascender line or you could be fancy pens and create a double turn or compound curve okay so let's start again with the letter t to do the second version up up up all the way till the shorter center line and from here pressing down following this land and release around the corner now this time i'm going to do [Music] an elongated and kirby shape okay and it's more or less in the middle of the x i as well okay um if i had double t's which in english is very very common i will write the two t's next to each other and then the crossbar will be unifying the tuttis and it's called a ligature okay so i'm gonna repeat this movement up going to the right follow the land up going to the right follow the slant exit now things i need to be looking at is be careful because the meeting point in here is higher and in this case is correct okay so we don't want to have that we want to have the two t's with the same meeting point second of all the space between the two t's need to be an oval shape so the same shape as my u shape so we might need to place the two t's closer to each other okay because it's getting too wide this is spacing so again thin up going to the right and going down and now i repeat the movement again going back up going to the right and going down all right this time the meeting points are good and the space between them is exactly the space of my u that you can see in here so now the spacing between the these is correct and by doing a crossbar like that i'm just unifying the two t's at the same time and this is called a ligature okay so last letter form for this group for this group we have a letter p and the first letter p traditionally has the same height as letter t so the movement i just did with letter t i will repeat it again with letter p um and again i'm going down and this time i'm stopping in this section in here okay so it's the same length as the t and now all the way down now things to take care of that it might happen number one the meeting point is a little bit higher so we don't want that we want to have it in the center number two this movement is getting off a slant and definitely i want to keep all my little forms in this slant so this land is not happening okay you see it's very wobbly so what i would do in here is make sure that this movement which is long because it's using three units this movement is not only finger movement is actually hand movement so i'm going to be pulling the skin on my hand across the paper instead of only moving the finger which is gonna make the letter going off his land like that like if i only move the finger movement the natural movement of my hand is like that and by doing this finger movement i'm definitely losing the slant so what i'm going to do is i'm going to move the hand and not the finger movement so that this doesn't lose this length okay let's move across and let's do it okay so what i'm doing here is the movement of the t first of all so i'm going up all the way up till the shortest underline i'm going to the right and i'm going to be pressing down here so this time i move my hand and not only the finger movement i just move the hand down and i'm getting now the good slant in here okay again thin up [Music] and down okay uh you see i'm pressing more i'm pressing less so i need to decide which one do i want to go with up to the right and okay i'm gonna go with the last one and this is the first um movement of my letter p now the movement i'm doing now with this letter b i'm going to do a movement called double turn and this double turn starts by the baseline of the x high and going up turning around the corner push following the slant release up okay and both of these areas should be very similar in terms of with let's do this again i'm going up very very thin turning around push following this land turning again exit okay uh visually we need to see the an oval on both sides of this third okay secondly i'm going to make sure that the area where i'm applying pressure is only this section in here okay so when i'm going up down up that's what i'm doing with the nip the area where i'm applying pressure it's basically only this section in here okay so i'm going around the corner and it's thin and goes back to scene let's do this again okay so i'm going up very thin around the corner push release and thin again and i need to make sure that these area are very similar in both sides and i also need to make sure that it's not too wide now let's build letter p so first of all we go up till the shortest underline i move my hand down following this land now with the meeting point i'm gonna look at this meeting point again okay i'm starting with the pen in the baseline or of the x high and the thin goes away from the thick roughly in the center thick and thin all right um off is land so i'm gonna say not here this movement is not following the slant the movement needs to follow this line completely okay so you see the differences let's do this again now going up and flat top and then you can place the pen on the base of the x high or if you want straight in the middle whatever is more comfortable going around going down exit okay and that is the letter p that i want to see here so i want to see a letter b that is framing my oval shape and both of these areas are the same and the meeting point is roughly the same okay so personally i find this b is too tall so what i do is i normally only use half of this area for the p so i'm gonna do the same just a little bit shorter going up press follow this land uh go back to the base thin going away push up now i'm going to write the first word and the first word is put so i'm going to join letter p with the beginning of the u flat top at the top going up flat top again exits and crossbar okay are you seeing here that the area is a little bit too big so this is important to get in consideration i just slightly retouched now that it was a slightly too big how do i know because i'm looking at these negative spaces and they are all the same and then i'm looking at the space inside the letter and the space between the letters are exactly the same or more or less the same okay so this is the pattern that i want to see with copper plate space inside and in between are all the same the slant everything follows the slant the thin and thick always the same going up thin going down very thick okay and the last thing that is very important every letter form has the same width with a couple of exceptions and this width is based on an oval shape where the height is two times the width okay so this is um a very good ratio to remember for looking at the oval shape which is inside every single one of these i hope this introduction was helpful [Music] and get in touch if you have any questions

Channel: Maria Montes

Views: 210,832

Keywords: Graphic Design, Calligraphy, Lettering, Maria Montes, Typography, Illustration, Copperplate

Id: uasWncPctnY

Length: 32min 6sec (1926 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 19 2020