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Veiko Kespersaks
Search Press
20 April 2011/ ISBN 1844486137
How-To Books/Calligraphy
Amazon
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Reviewed
by Rachel A Hyde
In these computerized times it is easy to buy a graphics or DTP
program, pick out a font and letter your own stationery, posters,
flyers etc. But of course you have a limitation regarding size,
and now we are all used to the printed word, it is surely the handwritten
one that has more impact. In short, calligraphy is an art form rising
above mere business or greetings stationery, and makes everything
personal.
It is fun, too, which helps--more so than pressing a button or two--relaxing
and, many people think, difficult to learn and expensive. This book
shows you how to do calligraphy in remarkably few lessons and shows
that it is no pricier than taking up a painting hobby, with which
it has much in common. There are seventeen lessons in all, after
the first pages have familiarized you with the materials you need
and shown you how to hold the pen etc. These aren’t ranked
in order of difficulty but in historical order, starting with Roman
Capitals and finishing with the modern Flourished Spencerian. Learn
how to group the letters into “family groups” of shapes,
construction, warm-up exercises, how to form them, the order of
strokes, spacing and numbers. Breaking it all down like this takes
much of the mystery out of getting it all right and neat, and I
wished I had had a book like this when I started learning calligraphy.
Each chapter also has “homework” where you get to practice
to make perfect. There is a short section on illumination, a couple
of projects and a short piece on punctuation. Calligraphy is a huge
topic and this only scratches the surface but is more than enough
to get somebody started on simple projects and to whet their appetite
for the next stage. A useful and practical primer for everybody
who wants to learn calligraphy.
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