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Connecting Letters to Form Words

Thank you all for being here um my name is beyond coma score oh, I am a calligrapher and have been doing clear if we've professionally for nine years very excited teaching class with philosophy at creative life um and in this class we're going to be going over alternate forms of uppercase and lowercase letters also experimenting how to flourish with those letters were start actually by connecting non flourish letters in towards um and you know, I think we're talking about modernizing our calligraphy as well, which is very popular right now so we're just gonna talk about basically had achieved more of a lose more stylized form of calligraphy so um in the first class obviously we stock that we talked about how tio just the basic letter forms of copper plate influenced style of calligraphy and now we're going to actually connect those forms into towards and I'm just gonna cover that really briefly since most of us I've had a lot of practice writing throughout our lives so um even though c...

alligraphy is not actually I don't like to call it writing even though the clear if you means beautiful writing um you really are drawing letters for the most part so but the same principles apply when you're actually connecting your letters as to you know, if you're writing just your mortgage check or something you know it was just like you're basically going to be a spacing your letters in a relatively consistent way I think that that's just sort of something that fortunately we've all had a lot of practice with so we're going to sort of take that and apply it to u calligraphy um but the trick is not just facing it's also connecting each different letters letter form to the next one and planning ahead um you know we all have the all the waters have that leading and they'll have you know, the finishing line so how to connect those letters is gonna be a trick um and you're also going to want to consider things like basically letters like the lower case b it ends up a little bit higher than does the lower case are so that's going to connect to the e for example differently than it's going to connect to you the are so let's just talk a bit about that so for the most part I like to recommend starting off with just connecting random letters like like said b and b are um v and s that's the tricky one so just when you're practicing this just pick some random letters you know starting with two then they're going to three they have to make any sense whatsoever um we could also pick out you know you're names of all your favorite cousins or you know your favorite types of lying I actually practiced a lot with like the great bridles cabernet so you know it's just pick something or if you're listening to a song d'oh, you know the lyrics, for example, so it just it doesn't have to make sense, you know, to go back and read this stuff, you're just gonna look at it, make sure, okay, this looks consistent and normal, and everything is eventually, you know, going to be the way you like it just went through that practice. So, um, for now, we're just going to start off with those first two, um, letters that I mentioned the ear because they'd be e and b are you got some oil on the new pier, so gonna wipe that off? That is kind of a tricky thing with, like, taking off your new job, putting it back in, you're bound to get some oil from your hands on it, and we'll need to wipe that off. So I believe that is what was happening there and looks a bit better. So again, the b is going to connect a lot differently than, say, like you lower case a, which ends on the bottom, so and probably just gonna do a little bit larger than format, just so you can really see the connections, so you're bi just starting off, I'm not really going to abide by my guidelines right now, so just forgive me for that, please um I just want to make sure you guys can get an actual sense of this connector is just what I'm doing here so season that should go up so that be ends obviously up here right versus your are which is going to end down here so those are going to connect and completely different spaces because this is going to actually be your lead into your next letter like your a but this is not your typical leading for your normal letter form which is definitely you know, like if I was to start to be down low which I typically do if it's in the middle of a word it's going to start down here um so let's just connect that b and that a, um it's here I just two little bit more you're just gonna want to keep that letter looking exactly like it should be that b is gonna look completely normal and then he's going to get that lower case a to connect naturally to it even though you didn't do that normal lead and that you would it's just going toe just connect right at their, um with an actual curve. So you're not gonna have that be basically you're you're gonna want avoid a sort of like a like outward line and then connecting tio excuse me just not getting enough income and of your, um this curved line so basically you're gonna want to avoid it like that sort of intersection like that it's just going to be a nice curve so that's just something that you want to focus on as you're connecting these letter forms um there's always gonna be a nice, graceful curve connecting them and again, much different when with the b than the a, um or something like the lower case are which already has that sort of that lead in sort of built into it from that you shape. So this was just a little bit more intuitive and with a gang going back to this sort of shape that's going to apply to your oh, and you're you and your v in your w so those will end up on a, um on the higher side so let's just dio on o and we're gonna connect it to pee. So for the oh I use and to be actually so all those letters I just mentioned the o b e u um, excuse me, not the u v in the w um, I sort of used this to guide into my next letter. So this downs downward movement right here just going toe swoop into the next letter from there versus you know you're not gonna want to finish your oh here and then move on like that because it's going to be a little bit difficult to connect at that point it's just an unnatural leading for that letter so any questions on connecting I know this is a very brief overview but just those types of connectors you know, if you're high up or if you're down low like you know there are shape that's all going to be kind of ah something that you want to kind of keep in mind it comes naturally eventually but you know, to start off with it's sort of it's a definite planning ahead sort of process um are there certain letters that air really hard? You know, you mentioned some like the bee is a little bit higher but are there certain letters that air harder for you to actually connect um would be an example of one piece which yes there's that double p issue so it's basically like with this particular form it's not that difficult, which is why I like to use it this if you do the lower case p that's more like say like that it's gonna be a little bit trickier because it's kind of coming in from neither here nor here it's like right in the middle so the same thing you can just as long as it's just, you know, maintain that graceful curve and between him you're gonna be all right um and a lot of the times obviously with the like lower case g and anything that has that descend er you're going to have a different connector actually, no, I'm sorry it's going to the same connectors just sort of coming in from a difference base um so you're really starting that connector that you see here in your a it's just starting lower so it's like kind of extension, right? So it's imagine that coming down a bit more and that's what you're getting here so the concept is basically the same in those connectors and just coming right back up and doing your a um excuse me that should be more of a u shaped there let's see, t shape is pretty obvious, you know? You're obviously not connecting that anything that crosses so that's not something that you need to worry about in those types of letters. What about an ex kind of easy? Actually. Okay, I know right let's see here. So because that x is actually going tohave a bit of that saying leading really the same lead and as you get you know that starts off year, eh a which is a great word to playing scrabble. Think of how your first letters finishing and how your second letter is starting so it's you know it's a two part system there, which is why it's really a planning ahead process you know let's just go ahead you for because the only word that I can really think of right now is taxi just strange so let's go taxi pretty obviously than arthur that you shape into the a sheep in that his too tight there we go so what? You're seeing a lot of times and your connectors is this consistent u shape between them so and that is something that you will want to keep consistent throughout eso if you focus on that it's going to help you keep your spacing consistent between the letters basically so you're not gonna want this u shape to be any like more narrow or wide than this u shape they're very consistent so that's just something that you want to pay attention to as you're writing these letters out um and see here what's another but letters you guys find tricky what about owen are because I know the kind of stuff that's very um that's a very good one so so again you're gonna have that downward movement right there and that's just gonna lead right up into your are so you're that part of the r is not changed obviously um and really where it meets in that beginning of the are there if you just take the line down you have your normal oregon so nothing really changes aboutthe shape overall shape of the r so you're going to want to still keep these letters you know, there's still their own shapes and you want to make sure that they stay that way you don't want anything to be like that looks like a different letter, so make sure that you just keeping your letters exactly the same as you would um minus that lead and because it's just like, well, I can't have the full leading because the o economist that up for me so you took it away but you still there are still gets to be its own whether it's still that are so that's just something just to make sure to pay attention to that you're not like because of how the r starts in this case you're not going to want to like slant any differently you're not gonna want to like, you know well, it's starting off this way so it's going to slant, which I know that sounds obvious, but it actually can sort of like trick you sometimes justice like you're leading and differently, so you want to change the shape or the change the angle of the r and you're not going to do that so and don't be afraid also as you're doing this tow, lift your pen and actually it's less about being afraid than you actually should lift your pen so um forget fear let's just do it so you're gonna want oh basically like actually let's go into in a that's better example of this so instead of coming around like this and starting a you're actually going to want to stop here oh we're finished euro but lift up and then you come back around and start that a so does that make sense so you're not basically like if you want to do just your standard you know handwriting if I was to write a boat for example, which I really wouldn't dio with the clear a few pen um you know, it's just like this it just never stopped it was all just one movement but really, you know, with this sort of form you're going to want a lift and then start the next letter okay? Um and again just obviously you're not gonna have that total u shaped guiding you with everything into the next letter or you're keeping your spacing consistent but that is just a basic general guideline isto have those u shapes in between your letters so like I said, like writing all those shapes you see that a lot actually, if you kind of you know, if you have like, a good long sentence or something like that and if you just look at the bottom part of it, you'll just see like a lot of you shapes it's kind of interesting try sometime um I'm going to talk about connecting uppercase letters to your words in for the most part you don't so look for the psi let's just write cat you're just going to leave that alone and then you're going to start off with your a and you're not gonna want to try to connect that see to your a um you can do it with like a g if you really wanted to connect it um but for the most part let's see, I don't want to finish this one I don't think I dio let's move onto a different g so you could just do that and then have it start you know have your are start if you're writing the word great it's just going toe just be like a two part process there you know your capital is not connected to your arm but you could if you wanted to you could bring it are up and then do that. But for the most part personally I do not actually connect my letters unless I'm doing a more modern cool your famous just all one improvement with a letter like an s the did isn't as much of a u shape how do you connect like say to us is or just a nest another letter and keep it consistent so that's um at that point you want to focus on that weeden so like are excusing it yeah in the air there are, you know, just began that lead in there let's see what's an appropriate word to us is in it pass pass thank you it's a pass so that lead in is the same there and this is where things it'll sticky with e s because you wanted just kind of have a tendency to just come right up but if you do that you're next s is going to really just butt up against the first one so that is something that you'll really want to focus on is spreading that out enough um and I'm just gonna write the two houses next to each other forget the word um oops. Excuse me so that's where you want to just kind of make sure that that lead in it's based out enough and then you have enough of a space there and that's probably a little dramatic cousin like trying to really drive the point home there s o u I really wouldn't that's also too much space but that's obviously too little so but that's um I think what you really want to focus on that part is this part here just make sure that you go to your right a bit versus coming like directly up so you just gonna go a nice curve there and that should do it um you can also do a more relaxed s in that way you just kind of doing that shape which is a lot like you know, the consistency, practice stroke that I like to recommend people to do is just more like pips. Sort of. Ah, you know, if you just keep going with it. It's. Just all right. That's. Just one way to do this is, but, um, you know, if the more traditional stripped, you want going to want to go that route and make sure that that bottom part is, you know, has that nice flowed to the right and then up to meet that like lead in that you have with most of your lower case letters.