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ON THE JUST PROPORTION
OF ROMAN CAPITAL LETTERS
A two-day workshop We all know what the proportions of capital letters should be, but do we know why? What magical happening occurred to decide these proportions? Who was responsible for their creation? Charles Pearce thinks that he may have the answer. During this workshop he will explain his theories about how letters may be more directly linked to architecture than previously thought. There will be plenty of demonstrations and hands-on work during this weekend. Be warned, there will be (dare we say it) some pen manipulation involved. You should bring plenty of paper
and ink with some large pens such as Coit, Automatic Lettering,
Hiro, etc. If you are used to working with a flat brush bring those
and some black gouache.
Please do not be put off by the
fact that this is a workshop dealing with Roman Capitals. Charles
will be here to prove that Romans can be fun, and after all, every
letter we use has its basis in Roman Inscriptional letters, so
the more we know about them, the better our calligraphy will become,
right? Right!!!
FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE
RIDICULOUS
A two-day workshop In the first of these two workshops Charles Pearce will be taking both a look backward and a look forward at the most basic of all letters used by modern day calligraphers – the Foundational Hand. You will be taken back to the ancestors of the Foundational Hand, the tenth century Carolingians of England, through Johnston’s letters, to forms that are of the late twentieth and early twenty first century. Foundational does not have to be boring! In the second workshop you will
enjoy (say it with a German accent) Letters From Hell. Ah, yes!
Another look at those wonderful Gothic Black Letters which enchanted
so many people back in Minnesota in 1991, and which prompted one
well-known calligrapher to opine, “I have never been so humiliated
in my life“. But, fear not, good friends. All will be revealed!
Come equipped with loads of
paper and ink, large pens such as Coit, Automatic Lettering,
Hiro, etc. plus your usual box of tricks. Be prepared to have
fun. That is an order.
THE FORENSICS OF CALLIGRAPHY At the beginning of the 20th Century
when Edward Johnston was first formulating his Foundational Hand for
the teaching of calligraphy,
he took as his model the Ramsey Psalter (Harley 2904). It was
Donald
Jackson who first coined the term "forensic calligraphy" and
far be it from me to try to change both the term and its sense. In this workshop we will first cut quills and then, having armed
ourselves with the tools, do an in depth study of the letters which
first so appealed to Edward Johnston. There are now so many variations
of the Foundational Hand that we really owe it to ourselves to go
right back to the source, and, through the miracles of modern technology
(I have been able to get digital images of two pages from the Ramsey
Psalter from the British Library) we shall be able to do just that. |
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