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Hamilton Guild hosted a Workshop given by British Calligrapher Sue Hufton in June of this year. Sue, who is author of the book "Step by Step Calligraphy", was on an exchange visit to Canada with her Husband and family. The workshop was well attended with members of the Hamilton Guild being joined by ones from Ridgetown, Guelph and Niagara.
Believing that a good foundation is essential Sue started with skeletal letters based on Edward Johnson’s Essential Letter Forms, which are in turn based on the Roman Majuscules found on the Trajan Column, a cast of which is in the British Museum.
The starting point for the letter form is a circle and a rectangle. The rectangle is ¾ the width of the circle but the same height. Samples of the skeletal letter form can be seen in the attached drawing.
Based on a circle with a height of 8 units a typical spacing between two upright letters, e.g. I H, would be 5 units. This space is reduced to 4 units between a vertical and a curved letter such as H O. Between two curved letters the space is reduced even more to three units e.g. O C. The idea here being that visually the spacing appears constant. Spacing between words is typically a full 8 units, equal to the width of a circle.
The layout of many ancient manuscripts is based on a hierarchy of texts, in order of importance these would be Monumental Roman, Versals, Uncials and Carolingian Minuscules. Sue showed some examples of these indicating typical uses of Versals.
Versal letters are considered as ‘built-up’ letters in as much as they cannot be formed by a single stroke but rather by a series of strokes. Typically verticals and horizontals are built-up in three strokes to give a narrowing or waist. This can be seen with the example of the letter I. The central, or flood, stroke has not been applied to show how the letter is formed.
Typically the height of a Versal letter is 24 times the pen width, the waist of the letter being a little under 3 pen widths.
Having produced the basic ‘I’ letter form we went on to produce the entire alphabet of Versals based on the skeletal form. Although based on a formal skeletal form Sue showed us a few tricks to give the letters a better balance and feel. For example a Versal ‘O’ is slightly narrowed in the width to give a slight ellipse.
The formal Versal can be adapted in many ways to suite the requirements of the calligrapher, examples given at the workshop include;
Finale
Having worked us with the zeal of a slave driver, Sue eventually relented and the final half-hour was passed pleasantly viewing slides and examples of her work.
Thanks Sue and thanks to Vicki Peart for organizing the workshop.