![]() It will make your letters stiff and clumsy. Watch out for muscular tension and poor posture. The Gothic letter ‘l’ is exactly the same, but the first lozenge starts about 7 nib-widths up and the descending vertical is of course longer (and more prone to wobble). (The thin diagonal slash as a ‘dot’ above the ‘i’ is not always found in the medieval originals but is very useful indeed for making Gothic script more legible.) You will notice (I hope!) that a Gothic letter ‘i’ is made up essentially of three marks: a symmetrical lozenge at the top, a short vertical (a ‘minim’) and another symmetrical lozenge at the bottom, which has an optional small upwards tick on it if it’s the final letter in a word. Here's an illustration of what 4 nib-widths looks like if your nib is very thick (your own nibwidths and, therefore, your Gothic alphabet may well be smaller or larger): There are a couple of letters – d and t – that are in between 4.5 and 7 nib-widths high. A standard, fairly open version is written around 4.5 nib-widths high for the x-height (the height of the regular small letters such as x, e, c, a, o.) Allow another 2-2.5 nib-widths above the x-height and below the base-line for ascenders or descenders on letters such as b, h, g, p. Gothic alphabets can vary in density and spacing. Rule your top line accordingly, or just estimate and stick to it as well as you can. You should write your Gothic alphabet at a size which is in proportion to the thickness of your nib so that it shows a pleasing balance of black and white space. The wider your nib, the taller and larger your letters must be. I’m going to assume you’ve made yourself comfortable :-) And, of course, this page in clear sight. Strictly, you should be lined up squarely in front of the desk with all your materials in easy reach, feet flat on the floor, back straight and shoulders relaxed. Tissues or cloth, and water if you like, for wiping ink off the nib, fingers, etc. You could use a board propped against a dictionary.)Ģ.ğair quality paper (preferably lightly ruled).Ĥ. Check that you have:ġ.Ě clear desk-space (preferably on a sloping writing-desk, or a desk-easel. In case you want to know, it’s pronounced ‘LIT-era tex-choo-WAH-lis kwod-RAH-tuh’.įirst, set up your workspace and materials comfortably. (Even more prestigious was textualis prescissa or sine pedibus.) This is the second-highest grade of Gothic alphabet from the period. The ‘littera textualis’ means it’s letters for the main text (ie high-grade formal writing)- and ‘quadrata’ refers to the square, regular, ‘four-sided’ look of it. Its Sunday title is littera textualis quadrata. The particular style of Gothic alphabet I’ve laid out here is a formal hand that would have been used for copying the main text (ie not translations or footnotes) of high-quality books in Latin between 12. By the end, you should, I hope, know more about writing Gothic than when you started. If you do the whole tutorial thoroughly, there are at least a couple of hours’ fun to be had out of it. ![]() The above is not a particularly good or beautiful example, but it gives you an idea. ![]() Colour temperature for calligraphy and art.
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