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How to Master the Art of Calligraphy

Lowercase Calligraphy Letters - C, O, E

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  • Joanne Wasserman

    Artist/Owner, Wasserman Design

    http://www.wassermandesign.com  
    301-589-3444

    Joanne Wasserman has been professionally engaged in original art, custom art services, and graphic design since 1979, when she opened Wasserman Design in Washington, DC, as a studio business. Joanne was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic DesignCalligraphy, drawing, painting, and graphic design are bedrock art realms that Wasserman uses interchangeably to explore diverse subjects material and create original formations of content and imagery. Her intention for every work of art is the same: to communicate what is most intensely meaningful about the circumstances which shape a subject's identity.Over the years, Wasserman has produced a singular body of works for business clients and individuals whose interests are focused on serious issues of life in today's world. Her testimonial art honors statesmen and leaders for their career achievements and dedication to public service. Recently, two exemplary works of calligraphy and illumination were composed for Senator John Warner, of Virginia, and Former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Atlantic Council of the United States commissioned both of these works of art. Wasserman's mural painting for the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing is a visual tribute to the school's educational mission across the entire field of nursing practice; the mural was named after an alumnus: The Leona Bowman Carpenter Center for Community Health Nursing.Other works include several drawings and watercolors that were made to express the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation's advocacy on behalf of all countries in which landmines have been used against innocent civilians, causing the destruction of lives, homelands and national economies.Wasserman's interests in current events, American history, and the development of writing systems and art traditions of peoples throughout the world are frequent catalysts for her choice of topics; moreover, through her work she cares to express the endearing aspects of living that are all around us. Change Agents of Culture is an ongoing series of 27 works that address creativity and invention in American society from the late 19th through 20th centuries. The first seventeen of these calligraphy-paintings were exhibited at the Embassy of Japan's Information and Culture Center, in Washington, DC, where the artist gave a public talk about writing systems in the world, entitled, PictureWritingThen & Now.

  • Lowercase Calligraphy Letters - C, O, E

    Calligraphy is the art form of writing beautifully. The writing system of Western world history is presented through the Chancery Cursive Script, the 15th Century, formal, book hand, invented by Italian professional scribes. Viewers can increase their manual skills as well an artistic insights during the time in which they practice the writing of an 'italic alphabet' using a pen, hand-dipped in ink, on pages that are ruled, also, by hand.

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  • Transcripts

    Joanne Wasserman: Hi! I am Joanne Wasserman and my studio is Wasserman Design and today we are learning the Chancery Cursive script and we are writing the small letters. Right now we have the piece of paper in front of us that we ruled earlier and which is five pen-width high, five of this pen-width high and we have ruled it all the way down the page and I am taping it below the table, because I am going to start writing at the top and I do not want to reach way up here to write.

    I want to have my line of vision upon the letters that I am making as close to directly in front of me as possible because that way I can make a good judgment as to the correctness of the letter form for the error of it, if I am writing it some where that I can not see. So first thing, I want to take my pencil and I want to put in X down on each of the spaces where I am going to be writing these letters. What I am going to share with you is the very top space is for the tall letters like a letter H.

    Then the second space, the middle space is like for the letter A or C or E. I am going to put in X there and this space is called the X space and the top line, it is actually called the X height. Then I am going to skip one, two more lines and put another X, two more lines and put another X, two more lines and put another X, two more lines and put another X, two more lines and put one more X and that is actually that's perfect on this page.

    So, you will see how you saw that X becomes to your writing. Now here is that tester sheet, so I get a sharp line and now that I do not have too much ink on there. Okay so then I am moving the paper down, so that it is in front of my face and I can see what I am writing. I go to this space, this line where the X is. In the first group of letters we have three sets. The first set is a C an O and an E. So what we are doing is we want to hold our pen at a 45 degree angle from the line, the line on the space that we went straight, and made a vertical line to the bottom of that line, we have a 90 degree perpendicular. Then half of the perpendicular is a 45 degree angle.

    We are going to hold our pen, so that it makes some mark at 45 degrees. You see, like this. If we had no angle to our pen we would have a line like this and you can see this line is thicker then the line to the left. So, with our pen out of 45 degree angle, we are going to make letters that slant, about 5 degrees, 9 or 10 degrees. It varies according to your own natural tendency. So every person who writes this script will write it at an angle that is natural to them. So, here is the letter C, holding it down, I am coming down with my pen and before I get to the pencil line, I am already into a curve.

    I make the curve at the pencil line and then I just lift my pen. That is one stroke and then I go back to that beginning stroke, see how skinny it is, we call that a hairline. I put the pen right into that skinny line and we go to get the ink to flow and I turn. So, that is the letter, we will do that again. Okay, so we will make this C one more time and then at 45 degree angle we come down slowly. Before we get to the pencil line we go into a curve, make the curve and we just lift our pen. Then for our second stroke to put the hat on the letter we go back into that short space where we came down, we go back in and then we go up, and as we are going up, we curve around like that and we just stop.

    So that is the letter C and then we will do this again. This time we will just keep on going. So two strokes, the letter C, two strokes the letter O. So we will make this first stroke number one again and we go back into that skinny line, we call it a hairline. The back end up around and there is our letter E. So, three letters in this first set and they are all made the same way with just a little variation in each one of them. C, O, E, there we are.

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