B is for Beautiful Handwriting

Hi everyone.  I have really enjoyed this past week looking at all your ‘A’ tags.  I was particularly inspired by Yvonne for starting to build a little stitchery tag book.   This made me decide not to bore you every week with my Family History tags, but to make my own little book of tags, building an Abecedary of Calligraphy styles and techniques. 

 To start my little book, and just to prove there is hope for everyone to improve their handwriting, I have made a tag to show what my handwriting was like in 1997, after I was suddenly taken ill with a brain haemorrhage.  For some time during my recovery, I was unable to talk and the only way I could communicate  was to write; with just a few letters per page you can imagine how much paper I got through!

In case you can’t read it, on the back of the tag I wrote what I was trying to say.  I have no peripheral vision to the left so my writing still has a tendency to go uphill.  , so I need to use guidelines.  It has taken me over 15 years to recover my calligraphy skills, I still need some practice.  I am enjoying this challenge because it is making me practice.  I hope people will be encouraged to see what can happen with a bit of perseverance!  I am hoping that by the end of this theme I will have a valuable instruction tool to use, if I run a Calligraphy workshop.

B is also for Black Letter.

On the front of this tag I have written the letter B in Black Letter style. Black Letter is one of the more difficult styles to mster.  The traditional proportions of Black Letter were based on three strokesof the pen so that the counters, the interior spaces of the letters were the same width as the actual pen strokes.  This regularity can make the script difficult to read. The capital letters are more rounded and open than their lower-case counterparts - I did a fewBs to practice!

On the back I have shown the whole alphabet with simple instructions on how to construct the letters. 

B is also for Bindweed.

This is actually a letter I did before I was ill but thought it would be useful in the book. I used gold gouache for the ‘B’ with green watercolour and a technical pen for the vine trailing around the letter.

I’m looking forward to taking a look at your beautiful ‘B’s later.

Bye for now

Jane xx