Transcripts
1. Welcome!: Hi there. My name is Audrey, and this is your Ultimate Guide To Modern Calligraphy With A Pointed Pen. This class is perfect for the beginner who might not be sure of where or how to start. There are so many resources out there, and it can be really confusing on what the first steps are. This class is designed to help you get to that starting point and then take you step by step. Even if you're self-taught or more advanced, you might still find this class helpful because going back to the basics is always a good idea. In this class, I'm going to share all of my best beginner tips such as supplies, troubleshooting, resources, and more. Then I'm going to take you step by step as we learn the basic strokes, the lowercase and uppercase alphabets, the numbers, and some common punctuation. If you're thinking my handwriting isn't good enough, don't worry. Handwriting has nothing to do with calligraphy. Calligraphy is a learned art and anything learned just takes practice and patient. By the end of the class, you will be able to put everything together and write an address. One of the most practical ways to start using your calligraphy is by writing addresses on envelopes. If there is someone getting married or hosting a party or if you just want to send out some happy mail, this is a great place to start. Well, I hope you're ready to spend some time with me as we dive head first into the world of modern calligraphy and get our writing on. I'll see you in class.
2. What is Modern Calligraphy?: Before we go too far, let's briefly discuss what modern calligraphy even is. Let's look at some examples of how calligraphy has evolved, specifically in Europe and the US. Before the invention of the printing press in 1440, some of the common styles were Gothic, italic, and Roman. As literacy and technology changed with the writing club, people were able to achieve different styles, such as the round hand associated with copper plates. Then in the US, around the mid 1880s, the Spencerian script was a standard style for everyone. It didn't have the typical thick and thin strokes like copper plate did, it let people write faster and more efficiently. However, the Spencerian script was quickly overshadowed by the simpler Palmer method that lasted until the early 20th century. The one thing that is consistent through all of these styles is that it has a consistent set of strokes and alphabet. There are very specific ways to write particular letters, the slant at which they're written, the height and width of the letters, etc. Now let's look at calligraphy today. In modern times, we celebrate individuality, but just because it's called modern, it doesn't mean that it doesn't have structure and standards. Modern calligraphy may look different from one calligrapher to the next, but all of the strokes and the letters are going to have some consistency within a particular style. In this class, you're going to learn my own style, which I just named after myself, Audrey. My alphabet is going to look slightly different than other people's, but all of my letters are going to have consistent heights, some of my uppercase letters have the same entrance strokes, and all of my letters lean at a 55-degree angle. These characteristics are what makes my alphabet, calligraphy, and my own style, makes it modern calligraphy. Throughout this class, you're going to be learning my modern calligraphy style. In a later video, I will show you briefly, how to start manipulating letter forms so you can start to create your own style. But modern calligraphy is first and foremost about getting the basics down, and practicing. Let's do that.
3. Tips & Troubleshooting: As you practice, you may run into some common issues or questions like: why isn't the ink leaving my nib, why is my nib catching on the paper, how do I clean my nib, how do I store my nibs, why do my shoulders hurt? Here are some general tips to get you started and some answers to some issues that you might run into. As for supplies, make sure to always keep your nibs clean. When you first buy your nib, it's going to have a coating of oil on it. To get rid of that, you can simply use an alcohol wipe, or any other cleaning wipe. You can also use some other methods like mild soap and toothpaste. But for me, I just use a simple cleaning wipe. This cleaning will help solve a lot of issues, one of them being ink flow. As you're practicing throughout this class, make sure to periodically wipe off the ink from your nib. For storing my nibs, I usually keep it in a metal tin with a little bit of micro fiber cloth. The cloth helps absorb some of the moisture that might be in the nibs as you were cleaning it. Some other tips that you might not think of, but you will probably need. First, make sure to adjust your chair and your desk heights. When you practice, you're going to be in one position like this for a pretty long time. You want to make sure that you can sit upright and make sure that your feet are flat on the floor. If you have one of those drafting tables where you can angle up your work, make sure to use one of those. If you don't have it, make sure to take breaks every now and then, and just stretch out your arms, stretch out your legs and walk around, so that your muscles don't tense up. You want to be able to adjust your chair so that when you rest your elbow on the table, you are at a 90 degree angle. This is really important because you want your arm to be able to move freely. If you sit too low, your arm won't have the room to be able to move freely and if you sit too high, then you're going to be hunching over your work and that's going to give you a lot of back and shoulder problems. Another tip is to place your feet flat on the floor. That is just so that your leg muscles don't get tense. If you're short like me and your feet don't reach the floor, don't worry, it's okay, maybe you can use a stool or a stack of books. The next tip is to fight the urge to hold your calligraphy pen like a regular pen. How you want to hold your pen is, you want to rest it on your middle finger, like so. You want to wrap your index finger on top and then put your thumb on the left side. If you are left-handed, it would just be the opposite. If this is how you normally hold a pen that's great. But if this isn't how you normally hold a pen, then you might have to do some adjusting. Secondly, when you write with a regular pen, you usually use just your fingers. However, with a calligraphy pen, you're going to want to use your wrist, your forearm, and use your finger only to put pressure on your pen so that you can create thicker down strokes. Now that you have your workspace ready, you've adjusted your chair and your desk height, you've got your arms placed on your table and you know how to hold your calligraphy pen now, try creating imaginary figure eights. First try with just your fingers. You can see that there's some limited movement. Now try to pivot from your wrist, you can see that you can create larger figure eights. Try moving from your forearm and not so much your fingers, you'll notice that you can create even larger figure eights. Just this practice alone really helps me to loosen up the muscles in my arm and get me ready to start practicing. My last tip is, don't forget to breathe. Whether you're a beginner or experienced, we tend to hold our breaths because we want our strokes or our letters to turn out perfect. We might also be afraid of making mistakes. But holding our breath tenses up all the muscles in our body, from our back to our shoulders. Remember to breathe normally as you write, let your breath flow as the ink flows and like I said in previous videos, practice will make a difference. Try to set aside about 30 to 60 minutes a day to practice, whether it's just the basic strokes, or letters, or numbers, or just anything. That daily practice is going to be really important because you will see improvement and you'll be super happy about it. Next let's look at the supplies that we'll be using and get started.
4. Letter Anatomy and Guidesheet: Hey everyone, in this video, I want to go over two things with you. First, I want to explain what my guide sheet looks like, and why it's designed the way it is. Second, we're going to look at the anatomy of a letter. Let's start with the guide sheet. Guide sheets are going to look different between calligraphers. Some people prefer to write large letters, and some prefer to write smaller letters. It will also depend on what tool you use. If you're using pointed pen, or a brush pen or even Digital, you're going to want different sizes of these guide sheets. But since this is appointed Pen class, we're going to only have one size of guide sheets. I do have other sizes available, both in inches and millimeters, available on my website. If you sign up for emails, you can get a free access to that. But for this class, we're going to use just one guide sheet. The guide sheet that I provided comes in two different opacities. This one is at 100% opacity, so that you can clearly see the black lines. I'll be using this mostly in the demonstrations so that you can see what I'm writing. But if you want to print it out on the HP premium LaserJet paper, and you want to write directly on the paper, then you can use this one, that has a lower opacity, around 30-35% so you can see your writing more clearly. Let's take a closer look at this guide sheet. Where you see the little x, the space that it occupies, a horizontal space is called the x-height. The x-height is the standard for most lowercase letters, and they use the letter x as the standard. The x-height is bordered by the baseline and the waistline. Above the waistline is the ascender line. Some guide sheets will have a secondary, ascender line. But in my particular guide sheet, I do not. The line below the baseline is the descender line. Finally, the slanted line is simply called the slant line. This is also going to be different for each calligrapher, and depending on the style of calligraphy that you are writing. Let's go into a little bit more specifics. There are a couple of things you want to consider when looking at a guide sheet. The first thing is what the height of the x-height is. The second thing you want to consider is the ascender height, and the descender height. There are some guide sheets where the ascender space, is the same as the x-height. I'll admit I used to write my letters this way before. But as I grew in my calligraphy studies, I realized that I wanted my ascenders, and descenders to be a little bit taller. In my guide sheet, the ascender space, and the descender space, is going to be 1.5 times larger. Basically the ratio is going to be at a 3-2-3 ratio. The third thing you want to consider is the slant. As I mentioned before, the slant angle will be different between calligraphers. Some people like it a little bit straighter. Some people like it really slanted, and that will also depend on the style of calligraphy that you're writing. I think the standard is generally between 52-55 degrees. As for me, I place my slant line at a 55-degree angle. That's it, with a guide sheet. Let's go on to the letter anatomy. In this example, I wrote the word calligraphy on the guide sheet. Notice where the x is, to indicate the x-height. You can see that the lowercase letters c, a, and I all fit within that x-height. Recall where the baseline, waistline, ascender, and descender lines are. If there are letters that go above the waist line to the ascender line, those are called ascenders. Take a look at the L's and the H. Any letters that go below the baseline are called descenders, as seen in the G, P, and Y. Throughout this class, I'm going to be using these terms quite often so that you know where I am on the guide sheet, and what type of letter or stroke that we are working on. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with these terms and what they refer to. Finally, each letter and word are going to have an entrance stroke and an exit stroke. When you get more comfortable with calligraphy and start developing your own modern style, you may omit these stroke, s and that's totally fine. But for a beginner, it's really important to focus on the fundamentals. I highly encourage you to include the entrance and exit strokes, so that you develop the right habits. Again, you can find these guide sheets in the class downloads. If you wanted to use guide sheets that has larger x heights, then you can sign up for emails and get access to my free downloads library. Go ahead and download the guide sheets, either print them out on regular paper and use marker paper on top, or print them out on the HP premium LaserJet paper. Let's get started. I'll see you in the next video.
5. Supplies overview: Hey everyone, let's talk about the supplies that we'll need for this class. Since this is a class for pointed pen Modern Calligraphy, we're going to focus on pointed pen supplies. Let's start with the nib. The nib that I'll be using is the Nikko G and you can tell that it's called that because it has the engraving of its name on the nib. I like to recommend this to beginners because it's fairly easy to write with. It has medium flexibility. Whether you're light handed or a heavy handed writer, it can withstand the pressure that you put on it. Next, you'll need a nib holder or a pen. You can use a straight pen like this, or you can use an oblique pen like this. Either way, you want to make sure that your nib fits these holders. The Nikko G nib size is pretty universal and both of these pens can also hold most nibs. This is the manuscript and this is the moblique. If you're right-handed and you have a hard time writing on an angle, then I think the oblique holder will be really good for you. If you're left-handed, you can use a straight pen. But they also make oblique holders for left-handed writers too. If you're not sure which one you think you might like, start with the straight and then if you have any difficulty, then move on to the oblique. Let's look at Ink. You can use any type of ink that you want as long as it has pretty good consistency. The type of ink that I'll be using is the walnut Ink. I like this because it has a nice brown color and it'll contrast nicely when I'm working on the worksheets for this class. I transferred this just to a smaller jar so that it's easier to use.While I'm working, I'll sometimes have a jar of water on hand to wash off the ink from my nib. If I don't wash it off in time and the ink has dried on the nib, then sometimes I'll use alcohol swabs to get the stubborn ink off. But anything with a cleaning agent like baby wipes or any other type of wipes will work. These are just handy to find at a local drugstore. Then a paper towel or a lint free cloth is recommended for drying your nibs. If you need to get your hands on these supplies, I provided the links for all of them in a PDF in the class downloads. If you don't want to do pointed pen, you can use a pencil or you can use a brush lettering pen. Just make sure that the brush tip is really small. Because the x height that will be working at is going to be about three 16ths of an inch. That's pretty small. Finally, the paper that you'll need is the HP premium LaserJet paper, or you can use marker paper. I have my guide sheets here in full opacity so you can see the black lines very clearly. You can print this on regular paper and use marker paper on top of it so you can trace it. Or if you print on the premium LaserJet paper, you can choose the worksheet that has a lower opacity, so you can barely see the lines and you can write directly on this paper. All right, I hope you're getting excited, let's grab our supplies and dive right in. I'll see you in the next video.
6. 8 Basic Strokes: I hope you're excited. In this video, we're going to cover the eight basic strokes. These are draws that you can practice over and over and sometimes when you don't know what to practice, these drills are really great to do. Think of these draws like warming up to do a project, or to practice your alphabet. It's like an athlete and how they stretch their muscles, or a musician when they practice their scales. So, as a calligrapher, you want to practice these basic strokes so that your letters look more uniform and they have consistency. Before we start writing, I just wanted to quickly mention how this nib is situated. When you push down on your nib with your index finger, you'll notice that the tine split, do you see that at the end? The point splits. So the nib has two tines and they're splitting. You want to make sure that when you have the nib on the paper, you want to make sure that the tines split evenly. You don't want it to be on the side or this side but you want them to split evenly like that. Again, look at your nib and you want to make sure that the tine split evenly like that. So, don't write on the side of the nib like that or on the other side. Secondly, you want to make sure that your nib is somewhat parallel to this slant lines. You don't want to be writing like this because now my nib is almost perpendicular to the slant lines. You want to twist your hand or twist your paper so that the nib is almost parallel to the slant lines. Similarly, if you were to use a straight pen, you might hold it like this naturally, but now my nib is intersecting these slant lines. So, in this case, I might have to turn my paper severely in order that my nib is almost parallel to this slant lines. Now I can write effortlessly and have the tines be splitting evenly. That's why a lot of right-handed calligraphers prefer the oblique pen because they allow us to write at a more natural angle and I don't have to turn my paper so severely. So this is a little bit more natural for me. The first basic stroke that will practice is called the down-stroke. To write the down-stroke, place your nib at the waistline, puts some pressure on the pen with your index finger, and then drag it down to the waistline. Try to match the angle of the slant lines as you write these down-strokes. This is one of the most basic strokes and I like to use this when I'm testing different nibs because some nibs are more flexible than others. Try adding just a little bit more pressure to see if you can get even thicker lines. Remember there is no rush. Just take your time. Try to create an even width at the top and the bottom. Again, remember that you are pressing down on your pen so that the nibs split evenly. Remember not to write on this side or on the other side. The next stroke that we'll practice is the upstroke. Now the upstroke can be really tricky for beginners, because unlike the down-stroke where we added pressure on the upstroke, we're not going to add any pressure at all. So create like that Nike symbol starting at the baseline and moving upwards. Now, this upstroke does not have to be parallel to the slant lines. If you are having trouble getting really straight lines or un-shaky lines, try this exercise. First, try creating the upstroke with just your fingers. Sometimes that creates a little bit of shakiness. Next, try writing this upstroke, moving your wrist as well as your hand and not just your fingers. You'll notice that you're able to move your pen further and without so much effort. Finally, try writing the upstroke by moving or pivoting from your arm or at your elbow. You'll notice that you're able to create really smooth lines. If you need to take another set of lines to practice the upstroke, go ahead and do so. The next basic stroke that will practice is the undertone. Now the undertone is going to be a combination of the down-stroke and the upstroke. So essentially it's going to be a down-stroke plus an upstroke. So, what that looks like in one seamless stroke, you start at the waist line, put some pressure on and then lift up to approach the waist line again. As you approach the baseline, release the pressure so that you can transition into the upstroke. Now you can make this distance between the down-stroke and upstroke a little bit narrower too, it doesn't have to be so wide. The next stroke is the overturn, which is basically the opposite of this. So, you're going to start with the upstroke, but it's going to have more of an arch. Then plus the down-stroke. So what that looks like is you're going to start at the baseline, come up and then down. Our next stroke is going to be a combination of the underturn and the overturn. But we're going to start with the overturn. So we're going to have the overturn plus the underturn. But in reality these two downstrokes are going to essentially be just one stroke. So what that looks like is, like so. Start at the baseline, come up to the waistline, downstroke, and then upstroke again. The next stroke is the oval stroke. It seems like it would be the letter O, but in my alphabet it's not. Instead you'll find the oval stroke in letters such as A, D, G, and Q. For the oval stroke, you're going to start just below the waist line and then you will do a short upstroke counterclockwise, do a downstroke, and then close it up. Let's see that again. So start just below the waistline, come up, down, close it up. You can make this oval a little narrow if you prefer to. It doesn't have to be a perfect oval. The point at which you start can actually create a point too. But try your best to be as consistent in the width of your ovals as possible. I'm not that much of a stickler for keeping everything the same size, but as a beginner, it's good to try and aim for consistency. We only have two more strokes to go. Now so far, all of our strokes have been within the baseline and the waistline. The last two strokes are going to approach the ascender line and the descender line. So let's practice those. For the ascender stroke, you're going to start at the waistline. Do a counterclockwise loop and then come down to the baseline. So start at the waistline, counterclockwise loop, downstroke to the baseline, like so. Now for our last stroke, which is the descender stroke. For the descender, you're going to start at the waistline, do a downstroke all the way down to the descender line, and then do a loop up to the baseline, like so. Again, remember to release the pressure as you approach that bottom descender line. Well, there you have it. Those are our eight basic strokes. We've got the downstroke, upstroke, underturn, overturn, compound, oval, ascender, and descender. Remember that these drills are like the warm ups to practicing anything else, even if it's just the alphabet. As you practice these drills, you're forming muscle memory. So your brain, and your hand, and your arm starts to remember these movements and they will become easier and easier to write. Another reason why we practice these strokes over and over is because all of the letters of the alphabet are going to have some combination of these strokes. When you get to the video about lower-case alphabet letters, it'll make a little bit more sense. But basically, each letter is going to have some combination of all of these strokes, whether it's one or two or three. In the next video we'll look at some modifications of these strokes, because not all letters are going to fit perfectly within these eight variation. So let's go ahead and take a look. I'll see you in the next video.
7. Modified Strokes: Hey everyone. In this video we'll look at some modified strokes. Because like I explained in the previous video, not every letter is going to be a perfect combination of the eight basic strokes. The first modified stroke that we'll look at is the dot and cross strokes. We always remember to dot RI's and cross our T's. For the dot, we're just going to do a really short downstroke, and you can do it just above the waistline. Right about here and just do a very short downstroke. Again, just above the waistline, and just do a very short downstroke. There are really only two letters that we dot the i and the j. But it's still good to practice, this is well. For the crossing of the T, you can cross it a couple of different ways. You can cross it just as a straight line. You can cross it with a wavy line. Practice either or both. But the key is to have almost no pressure on your pen. Just let the nib just glide on the paper. I also use this stroke on the capital letters A, F, and T. The next stroke is what I like to call the half oval. You'll see this stroke in letters such as C and E. The reason why I call it the half oval is because a full oval looks like this. The half oval is going to have parts of the stroke, but not all of it. For example, we're going to start the same way, just below the waist line right about there and then come down like we normally would. But instead of closing the oval, are going to extend it with an upstroke, essentially creating the letter C. We're already practicing that letter. For the letter E, you just want to start a little lower, almost halfway between the waistline and the baseline. Like so. Now let's practice what I like to call the commas stroke. You can use this stroke on letters such as R, V, and W, maybe also on the capital F depending on how you write it. The way that I write the letter R is I started to waste the baseline, come up like this. Do a comma stroke, and then do an undertone. Essentially we're going to practice that little stroke up there. You can do it right at the waistline, right above the waistline. Doesn't really matter. But essentially, it looks like a comma, but it's actually backwards. You're going to be curved, kind of facing to the right. Do a downstroke and then quickly let off the pressure. Again, you can do it at the waistline as well. Again, put a little bit of pressure, but then quickly lead off. The next drop we're going to come back to the oval, but this time we're going to do it backwards. We're going to start at the baseline, come up to the waistline, come down, and then meet where you just started, and then we're going to loop through the middle. Like so. Again, it looks like an overturned, but then close it, so you essentially have a backwards oval and then loop through. Now this will be one seamless stroke, like so. This stroke is what I use for letters such as B and P. Just a few more strokes to go. The next one is the backwards descender, so the decender stroke that we practiced before curved to the left. But now we're going to curve to the right, and you'll see this stroke in letters such as F and Q. Just come down, started the waistline come down. But then this time go to the right. The last modified stroke that we'll practice is the SWASH. This can come in a couple of different sizes depending on which letter you're working on. For the lowercase s, you can do a small SWASH in between the waistline and the baseline. Started the waistline and then do a small SWASH that looks like that. It looks like a miniature s. For some capital letters, such as capital F and capital T. Also depending on how you write some of your other letters, it could also apply to a lot of other capital letters too. You would have a larger SWASH. This time started the ascender, or even halfway between the ascender and the waistline, somewhere right about here. Do a larger swash and then meet at the baseline. You can practice some even taller ones that start at the ascender line 2. These are some of our modified strokes. The dot stroke, the cross stroke, half oval, comma stroke, backwards oval, backwards descender, and the swash. Between the eighth basic strokes here, and the modified strokes here, you can write every single letter of the lowercase off of it. I hope you're excited. I see you in the next video.
8. Lowercase, a-m: Hey everyone. Over the next couple of videos, we're going to write all 26 letters of the lower-case alphabet. As I mentioned, each letter of the lower-case alphabet, is going to be some combination of these strokes, these eight basic strokes, and then these modified strokes. We're going to see these appear time and time again. If you need to pause and keep practicing these strokes, go ahead and do that. There's no rush and I'd rather you be comfortable with these strokes first instead of rushing into the alphabet and trying to learn those. But if you are comfortable and ready to move on, then let's go ahead and grab a guide sheet and get started. Now if you take a look at my alphabet here, you'll notice that every letter, has an entrance stroke and an exit stroke. This is really important because this is how we're going to connect letters. That will come in a later video. For now, just start every letter with an upstroke to represent the entrance stroke and end each letter with an upstroke that represents the exit stroke. If we were to look at the letter a, if I were to write it from start to finish, it would look like that. But now, I'm going to break it down because as I said, this letter is going to be a combination of the basic strokes that we've been practicing. The way that I wrote it was first, an upstroke plus the oval stroke plus the under-turn stroke and that's why practicing these basic strokes was so important. Because if you know how to write each of these individually and well, then you can easily put them together to create the letter a. Again, if you have to pause and practice these strokes over and over again, go ahead and do that. But if you're ready, go ahead and start writing the letter a. So upstroke and you can stop about halfway between the waistline and the baseline. Because when we start the oval stroke, you want to make sure that your down-stroke covers that up now that, that oval was a little wide. I'm going to do the upstroke again and not jumps so far to the right. There we go. That's a little better. Then the under-turn, you try it again, and then you want this ending point here to be covered by the down-stroke of the oval stroke. Let's look at the letter b. The letter b written out fully, looks something like this. When we break it down, we have our entrance stroke, which is the upstroke plus ascender plus, remember that backwards oval that we practiced in the modified strokes video, that's what that is. Let's practice the b. Notice how when I write my upstroke, I stop, pick up my pen, and then move to the waistline to start the ascender stroke. You can move a little bit to the right and then start the ascender stroke. If you miss and there is a gap, that's okay, you can just extend that upstroke to close it up. In calligraphy, it's really important that each stroke gets attention. If you need to, you can consciously tell yourself, pick up the nib each time. Upstroke, pick up your pen, ascender stroke, pick up your pen, backwards over. This way, it really teaches you to slow down and to focus more on the strokes, and rather than just the letter that you're writing. Let's look at the letter c. We wrote that already when we were practicing our modified strokes. Let's go ahead and break that down. It's essentially an upstroke plus that half oval stroke. Let's go ahead and practice the letter c. Let's look at the letter d. The letter d is broken up into three parts as well. We've got the entrance stroke plus oval stroke plus the ascender, and then end it with the exit stroke. Let's practice that. The letter e, we looked at before too. We've got the upstroke or entrance stroke and then plus that modified half oval stroke. Let's practice the letter e. Again, you can stop your entrance stroke right about there and then you can start about at the same spot, but just right next to it to write your e. Now the letter f is going to be one of the largest letters that we write because we're going to go all the way up to the ascender line and then all the way down to the descender line. To break this one down, we've got the upstroke plus an ascender. But this time, we're going to go all the way down to the descender line, and it's essentially a backwards descender, and then plus the exit stroke. Now, this down-stroke here, is going to be the same as this down-stroke here. If we were to write all of that together. Let's keep going. We've got the letter g, when we break that down, we've got the entrance stroke plus oval plus descender stroke plus the exit stroke. The h is unique, but it still has elements of the eight basic strokes. We've got the upstroke plus ascender plus the compound. The letter i, we've got upstroke plus underturn plus the little dot. Remember that this dot is just a really short downstroke. The j is pretty similar, we have the upstroke plus descender plus the exit stroke, and then we're going to dot our j. The k is also a really unique letter. The way that I write it is upstroke plus ascender plus, do you remember the backwards oval that we did? We're going to use that same motion, it's like the overturn, but we're going to cut halfway through, like that and then an upstroke to finish it off. In this video, we'll just do two more letters. For the l, we have the upstroke plus ascender and then finish it off with the exit stroke. Finally, the m is going to be a combination of compound strokes, upstroke plus one type of compound stroke plus the other type. Putting it together, we're going to come down first, then up, then down, then up, then down, and then back up. Sometimes I like to make this second hump a little taller. If you wanted to do that, you could come down, but then this time go above the waistline, come down, and then hit the waistline again. This is simply just a more modern way of writing this letter, but you can keep it all the same height too, if you prefer. All right, let's write the second half of the alphabet. I'll see you in the next video.
9. Lowercase, n-z: Friends, let's finish writing the rest of the lower-case alphabet. The next letter that we'll work on is the letter n. The upstroke plus the under-turn plus the compound. Just like the m, You can choose to make this second hump taller than the waistline or not. It's entirely up to you. Personally, I think I am inconsistent in that regard. Sometimes I go above and sometimes I don't. It's okay if you don't have a preference. In that case, you might want to practice both styles. For the letter o, I like to write it with a little bit of a loop, like so. For this one it's going to be upstroke plus a tall under-turn and then plus the loop. There are many different ways to write the o, you can write it however you like. Another way you can write it is using our comma stroke. You can write the upstroke and then the oval stroke, and then right where you started and ended that meeting point, disguise that point with the comma stroke. Now this o is a little bit tricky because if you make that comma stroke too long, it could be mistaken for the letter a. That's fine if you like it like that, just be consistent. Again, if you wanted to try the other o with the loop, that's okay, or if you want to try it with the comma stroke, that's okay too. In the letter p, I write it in one or two strokes. You've got the upstroke and then you've got the descender. Then, from there you can seamlessly go into that backwards oval stroke. This is the same one that we did in the letter b. Again, you can pause after this descender stroke if you have to, and then continue with the backwards oval, or you can transition seamlessly into it and then write it like that. The letter q is a nice combination of the upstroke plus oval stroke, plus the backwards descender and then the exit stroke to finish it off. If you remember how I demonstrated the r earlier, we're going to use the upstroke, but this time our upstroke is going to go above the waistline. Then we've got the comma stroke and then the under-turn. Let's put those together. We go above the waistline, comma stroke, under-turn. You can do this in one stroke without lifting up your pen, but if you have to just do it after each individual stroke. In the letter s, we're going to use that swash stroke that we practice in the modified strokes video. You have your upstroke plus the small swash, and then where you ended that swash, you're going to start your exit stroke like so. The letter T seems like such a pretty easy letter. That's because it is. Get your upstroke plus a long or a tall underturn. You're going to start at the ascender, come down and then finish up with an upstroke that goes to the waist line. Then a cross stroke. Again, you can make this wavy or you can just make it straight up to you. We're almost done with the alphabet, just a handful of letters to go. The U is going to be a combination of three different strokes, or three strokes in total. Upstroke plus underturn, plus another underturn. Now you can stop the first underturn about halfway because that point is going to be covered by the next underturn. For the next two letters, the V and the W, we're going to use that common stroke that we practiced. You've got upstroke plus underturn. Just like we did in the R, make sure to extend that upstroke above the waistline, so you can cover that point with the little comma stroke. Now some people instead of a comma stroke, like to add a little loop. That's totally fine too. Sometimes I write it like that too. Whether it's a loop, a small loop, or the common stroke. Remember just to be consistent, because if you use the loop in the V, make sure to use the loop in the W as well. Also remember this underturn, this point down here has to be very narrow. It doesn't have to be a perfect point, but it does have to be narrow enough so that it looks like the letter V and not like the letter U. Let's do the same for the letter w, but just add an extra underturn. Again, remember to make these underturns quite narrow. If you wanted to opt out of using the common stroke and instead use the little loop, that's okay. Three more letters to go. For the X I like to do a compound curve. It looks a little messy here, but it's a compound curve. It's like the cross stroke, but at an angle. You don't have to make your cross stroke this large, it can be a lot smaller. Again, it's the compound curve plus the cross. You can make your cross stroke smaller too, like so. But since we don't write the letter X often, I like to exaggerate it. Let it have its moment to shine. The letter Y, upstroke plus underturn plus descender and then that exit stroke to finish. You can stop you're underturn right about there before you start the descender stroke. Last but not least, we'll look at the letter Z. The way that I like to write the letter Z is the overturn plus, it is a descender stroke. But if you look very carefully, there's a tiny little bump, and then the descender stroke, like so. Overturn, short little upstroke, and then descender stroke plus the exit stroke to finish it off. Congratulations on writing all 26 letters of the alphabet. You should feel really proud of yourselves. Again, if you want to go back to practicing strokes, that's totally okay. Go ahead and do that. Then you'll notice that, writing these letters will come a lot easier. In the next video, we're going to look at how to connect these letters so that we can write words. I'll see you there.
10. Connecting, a-e: Hey everyone. In the next couple of videos, we're going to talk about connecting letters. Connecting letters seems confusing because of all the different possibilities of two letters coming together. But if you think about it, we already practiced putting letters together. Every letter that we just wrote has an entrance and an exit stroke. When we connect letters, the exit stroke of the first letter becomes the entrance stroke of the second letter, and so on and so forth. However, depending on which two letters are put together, sometimes that exit stroke or that connecting stroke may look different. I am going to use the word art as an example. If we were to break this word down into its individual strokes, then we can see how the exit stroke becomes the entrance stroke of the next letter. In the word art, we first have the entrance stroke for the letter a, and then we have the oval stroke, and then we have an underturn. Now the underturn that we practiced earlier stops at the waistline. However, because we're connecting to the r, we're going to have to extend that upstroke above the waistline. Does that make sense? We had to modify this stroke here. Now this upstroke becomes the entrance stroke of the letter r. From here, then we can add our little comma stroke, and then another underturn, and this stroke is the exit stroke of the letter r. But it's also going to be the entrance stroke of the t, and then plus the cross. This is a prime example of why practicing the basic strokes is so important. If you can remember that the letter r has that tall entrance stroke, then anytime you have to connect a letter before the r, then you'll remember that and you'll recall it every time. You'll also notice that sometimes these exit strokes, even though we've been practicing going all the way to the waistline, they're not always going to go to the waistline either. Sometimes they might stop low towards the baseline, and that's okay. A lot of that will just come with practice. That's why we're doing this together. Another great tip is, it's really helpful if you lift up your pen after each of these strokes. Just like we practiced in the lowercase letters, we practice lifting up our pen after each stroke. Remember that? That's going to be the same when we write these words. In the next connecting letters videos, we're going to look at maybe three or four letter connections for each letter. Then we're going to observe how the connecting stroke might be written differently or it might not, depending on which letters are together. Now, I can't possibly show you every single possible letter connections, then we would be here forever. I'm just going to focus on some popular ones, or some tricky ones. Hopefully between those two, you will feel more confident to try connecting other letters together on your own. Let's get started. We'll start with the letter a, and we'll look at the a-c connection first. Always do your entrance stroke like so. We've got our a, the oval stroke, and then for our underturn, I'm going to stop about halfway. Because the next letter, which is going to be a-c, that downstroke is going to cover up this upstroke here. I'm going to stop right there. Okay. I'll demonstrate it again, and one more time. As we're doing this, think of some words that have these letters in it. All right. The next letter connection that we'll look at is a and m. Again, I'm going to stop my exit stroke about halfway in between the baseline and the waistline, and then write my m. Lastly, we'll look at the a-y connection. Again, I'm going to stop about halfway. Okay. Let's look at the letter b. Let's look at the connection between the letters b and e. Instead of extending that exit stroke all the way to the waist line, I'm going to stop about halfway and then write my e. Again, stop about halfway and then write the letter e. One more time. Let's look at b to o. Similar to the e. I'm going to stop about halfway because this is where I'm going to start my down stroke for my o. For our last connection, let's look at the b and the r. Now before I continue, remember how we wrote in the letter or the word art up here, we had to extend that upstroke above the waistline. Keep that in mind because as we do the same for this b, we're going to have to extend that upstroke above the waistline, like so. Then comma stroke, underturn. Go above the waistline, comma stroke, underturn. I'll do it one more time in this empty space. In the letter c, let's do a double c connection. I'm going to finish my upstroke about halfway, and then write my second c. Let's look at the c-h connection, which is pretty popular. This time I'm going to extend my upstroke almost to the waistline and then start my h under stroke. Again. I'm going to write my c and then extend that almost up to the waist line, and then start my ascender. One more time. Again, it's helpful if you take many pauses and pick up your pen after each stroke. Lastly, let's do the c-k connection, which is also pretty common. This time I'm going to stop maybe about halfway, and then do the k. But you can also go all the way up to the waistline too if you want. Right there, I'm almost at the waistline. Moving on to the letter d. Let's do the d-a connection. I'm stopping my upstroke about halfway, and then the letter a. A common double letter is the d-d. Let's try that. But similar to the d-a connection because they're both using the oval stroke. It's okay to finish that upstroke about halfway. For the last one, let's do the d and the o. Again, I'm going to stop about halfway and then start my o. All right, let's do the e. Let's first do double e's. I'm going to stop about halfway, and then write my second letter. Again, after you write your first letter and when you're about to start your second, you can start your second letter just to the right of where you just ended. Because remember as you come down your downstroke is going to cover up that connection there. Let's try the e to the n. I got an ink blob there. Then lastly, let's look at the e and the q. Again, I'm stopping about halfway because I'm going to connect to an oval stroke, and so I know that that downstroke is going to cover it up.
11. Connecting, f-l: Let's continue in our alphabet with the letter F. Let's try the f and the a connection. Again, when you're connecting to an oval stroke, you can stop about halfway. Double letters can always be tricky. Let's try the f and f connection. Before I draw my upstroke, remember that we're going to connect to an ascender. I'm going to extend that all the way up to the waistline, and then start my ascender stroke. Again, that connecting stroke is going to go all the way to the waistline or pretty close to it, and then start your second letter. One more time. Let's look at the f and r connection. Again, I'm going to stop before I draw the next connecting stroke. Because when we write the letter r, we have to be careful to go above the waistline. We're going to extend that like so. Comma stroke, under turn. You have to make sure that this connecting stroke is narrow. If you make it too wide, then your letter r is going to be. For example, if I went like this, it's a little bit wider, then my letter r is going to look a little bit too wide as well. You want to make sure that this connecting stroke is a little narrow. Comma stroke, under turn. Let's go the letter g, and let's try double G's. Now, since the g starts with an oval stroke, I'm going to stop my exit stroke here in the middle. Let's try the g, o. Lastly, let's look at the g, s. Now, g, s wouldn't necessarily be the start of a word, it would most likely be the ending of a word. Nevertheless, it is a connection. We have the g, and then I'm going to stop right about there. Because for the s, we're going to go straight to the waistline. I'm going to just take that and exit stroke, go all the way up to the waistline, like so and then do a little swash, and then upstroke to finish. Again, you don't want to make this exit stroke or this connecting stroke too wide. Great job. Let's keep going. For the letter h, let's look at the h, i connection, which is simply the word hi. Now for this, I extended my upstroke all the way up to the waistline because the letter i is a simple under turn and it starts at the waistline. But you can stop halfway if you want to. That's fine. Then write the i. You'll just notice that this connecting point is just lower than this connecting point, and it doesn't really matter. Again, you can go all the way up and then start your i or you can keep it low and stop in the middle and then write the i. Let's look at the h and t. Now, the t is also an under turn, but that just starts at the ascender line. You can go all the way up to the waistline if you want or stop halfway. Again, you can stop halfway if you want and then write the t. The last connection that we'll look at is the h and u. Since the u also has an under turn, you can stop halfway or go all the way up to the waistline. I'm going to stop about halfway and then write my u. But just to show you, you can go all the way up to the waistline too, and then write the letter u. Lets go on to the letter i. Let's do an i to m connection. I'm going to stop about halfway and then write my m. But since the m starts with an under turn, you can extend your I's exit stroke all the way to the waistline too. If you do this, just make sure to keep that under turn nice and narrow. Otherwise, this spacing between your letters is going to be too wide. Notice a difference in this one I stopped that exit stroke about halfway, and so my m is a little bit closer to the i. For this one, I extended it all the way to the waistline, which is fine. But I didn't keep this under turn nice and narrow. Now the spacing between the i and the m is a little too wide. Overall, these two letters are much wider than these two letters. Now, I'm not too much of a stickler when it comes to these things, but if you like to make sure that your letters look nice and uniform, then making sure that your spacing is consistent is going to be really important. Play around with where your exit strokes and because that'll determine how good your spacing of your letters are. The next one we'll look at is i to p. Again, same thing with what we did for the I and the M. Just make sure that your exit stroke from your I. You can go all the way up, but again, my underturn is a little bit too wide now. Now my P has to start there. These two, this set is much wider than this first set. Let's try it again but this time go all the way up to the waistline, but keep it narrow, like so. I still have to start my P at this point but because I kept that underturn nice and narrow, my spacing is more consistent. Lastly, let's look at I to X. For the I to X, the I is going to move seamlessly into the underturn of the X. I dot my I, cross my X. Again, this underturn, that upstroke, depending on how narrow or wide it is, is going to affect your spacing. Both of these are pretty consistent, but let's say that I made it too wide. I went all the way to the waistline, but I made this underturn way too wide. Now when I go into the compound curve for the X or the next underturn, just take a look. This set is much wider than this set, and the first one. Just as you're writing, always try to keep your letters spacings consistent. Now there are some letters that are naturally going to be skinnier, like the letter I, the letter T, and the letter L, just because they just are skinnier. Some letters are going to be naturally wider, like the M and the N and the W, and maybe even the X, just the more you practice and the more you train your eye to see the subtle differences between the letter spacing, is going to be really helpful. Let's continue with the letter J, let's do J to A. I'm going to stop about halfway. Let's look at J to O. I'm going about three quarters of the way up, and then doing my O. Lastly, let's look at J to U. Now for the underturns, or connecting to underturns, remember you can stop halfway or you can go all the way up to the waistline. I'm going to stop halfway and do my U. Now if we were to go all the way up to the waistline, just like we've been practicing, make sure to keep that upstroke nice and narrow. Now I can start my underturn there, and the spacing is still consistent with this one. Does that make sense? Go all the way up, or you can stop halfway. Let's do the K, and let's do the K to E connection. I'm going to stop about halfway, and then start my E right about there, just next to that exit point. Let's look at K to I. I'm going to stop about halfway. But remember, the I is an underturn so you could make the connecting stroke go all the way up. But always remember, keep it nice and narrow, so that you can keep your letter spacing consistent. Lastly, let's look at the K to N connection. I just in general like to stop about halfway, because sometimes when I go too high, I just mess up, or I make it too wide. But this time, I will try to consciously go all the way up to the waistline. Because since the N starts with the downstroke, I could go up there by trying to make sure that the spacing is consistent, and it looks pretty good. Then let's finish this page off with the letter L, and let's do double Ls. Now since the Ls are in ascender, you can stop halfway like we always have been doing, or you can go all the way to the ascender or all the way out to the waistline. That was stopping halfway, let's try one where we go all the way up to the waistline. Again, keep that distance very short or very narrow, so that your spacing is consistent. Let's look at L to O. Lastly, let's look at L to T. Again, you can stop halfway or you can go all the way to the waistline, but keep it narrow like so. Great job. Let's continue writing these letters and their connections.
12. Connecting, m-z: We are about halfway through the alphabet. Let's continue with the letter m. Let's do an m to a connection. Now when we connect to an oval stroke, I usually stop my exit stroke about halfway. Let's do one more. Next let's do the double m's just because they are tricky but fun to write. I'm going to stop my exit stroke about there halfway and then write my second m. Remember just take it slow and stop after each stroke. Of course I'm exaggerating my pauses. You don't have to pause as long as I do. Lastly let's do the m to s. Now for the s, I'm going to go all the way up to the waistline because that's where my swash is going to start. You want to keep this last under turn quite narrow. If you make it too wide, the s is going to be too wide as well. Let's go into letter n. Let's do an n to d connection. Like in the word and right when we go to an oval stroke, stop about halfway, oval stroke ascender. Let's look at n to g, which is also a pretty common connection. But it's also another oval stroke. Stop about halfway. Lastly, let's look at the n to the t. You can go all the way up to the waistline or stop about halfway. Let's go into the letter o. Now this letter tends to give people a hard time. It all depends on how big or how small you make that loop on top of the o. The first connection that we'll do is o to m. For this, I made my loop a little bit bigger, just slightly bigger. Then I extended an exit stroke all the way to the waistline because that's where I need to start my m. Now let's try o to r. Remember for the r, you're going to have to extend that exit stroke above the waistline. Remember that as you come out of the o, you want to go above the waist line like that. Then do your comma stroke and under turn. You want to make sure that this connecting stroke is narrow. That one's a little better. Let's do it one more time. Let's do o to v. V as in victor. Now for the v, we just do an under turn. Just like we did for the m, I'm going to stop my exit stroke at the waistline and keep it pretty narrow. Then do my v end it with a common stroke. Let's go on to the letter p. Let's do p to l. Now, since the l is an ascender, you can go all the way up to the waistline or you can stop halfway too. Just when you do these different connections, just make sure to always step back and evaluate the spacing and make sure that it's consistent. Let's do another double letters. Let's try p and p. I'm going to extend my exit stroke all the way to the waistline because the next stroke is a descender and I start at the waistline. It just makes that connection a lot easier. That first p, this stroke is a little weird, ignore that, still one more time. Go all the way up to the waistline. Lastly, let's look at p to y. I'm going to go all the way up to the waistline again because the under turned starts up there for the y. You can't stop halfway. Just make sure to give it a little bit of extra room, so you can write the next letter. For the q we'll just look at just a q and the u, just because that's the most common. I'm going to go all the way up to the waistline. I can already tell I made this connecting stroke this upstroke a little too wide, so I know my u is going to be a little bit too far away. I'm going to try it again and make that exit stroke a little bit narrower, just like that. Now my u is a little bit closer and I like that much better. That one more time but you can end in the middle if you like to. I'm going to continue with the letter r just on the same line. Let's do both r and r. We've done a lot of connections from a different letter to the r. Similarly that under turn stroke has to go way above the waist line, so you can connect it too. Let's look at r to s. You go all the way up to the waistline but keep that distance narrow. One more time. Let's continue with the letter s. Now, the letter s is one of the most common letters, so there's a lot of connections that we could explore. We're only going to look at three. We'll look at the s to h first. When we go to the edge, we're going to do an ascender stroke so you can go all the way up to the waistline if you want. Let's look at s to q. When we connect to an oval stroke, you can stop about halfway. Finally, let's look at the s to w. Now since we are going to an underturn stroke, you can stop halfway or close to the waist line, or all the way to the waistline. By now, just make sure to keep that connecting stroke narrow one more time. Let's go on to the t. We'll look at t to h. I'm going to go all the up to the waistline, making sure that this distance is nice and narrow. Let's look at t to o, and I'm going to stop about 75 percent of the way up to the waistline. Lastly, let's practice double ts. I'm stopping about halfway. We're almost at the end. Let's go to letter u to l. The u is an ascender, you can go all the way up to the waistline. Just make sure to keep that under turn, nice and narrow. Let's look at u to n. I'm going to stop my exit stroke about halfway. Lastly, let's look at u to p, and I'm going to go all the way up to the waistline, because the descender stroke starts up there. One more time. For the next two letters, the v and the w, they both end with that comma stroke. So that comma stroke tends to end right at the waistline. So depending on what the next letter is, you might have to make the comma stroke a little bit longer, meaning taller vertically, or you might have to make it shorter and wider. So let's look at the v to a. Now before I do the comma stroke, I'm thinking the A starts with an oval stroke. So I'm going to bring my comma stroke a little bit further down, so that I end right about halfway. Then I'm going to do my oval stroke. So I had to make my coma stroke a little bit longer, so that I could end up about in the middle. If I do it the other way and keep my comma stroke right at the waistline, and then my a comes up here, then that connection is happening too high on the a. So it looks a little funny compared to these other sets. Let's look at v to o. Similarly, I'm going to have to bring that comma stroke pretty far down about halfway, because my o looks like that. I'll show you what it looks like when I do the comma stroke too high and stop about there, then it looks a little bit messy, because now this comma stroke is too close to this oval. So I can't really tell what those two letters look like. So again, just bringing that comma stroke down low, and then write your o. Let's try v to u. Now the u has an under turn, so you can actually keep your comma stroke, probably right about there and just stop at the waistline, and then start your under turn for the u. Let's go into the w because it has that same comma stroke. Let's do w to e. Now the e also has parts of the oval stroke. So just like the v to the a, I have to bring this comma stroke down low, about halfway, and then write my e. Let's try w to h. Now the h has an ascender, so I can do my comma stroke, but then bring it back up to the waistline, and then start my a center for the h. Had a little bit of an ink blot, so it looks messy there, but I'll do it one more time. There we go. Lastly, let's look at the w to r, because the r is always a little bit tricky. Because now we're going to have two comma strokes right next to one another. So for this one, I'm going to do my comma stroke, but then swing wide like that. Then do my comma stroke for the r. Think I swung a little bit too wide. There we go. Now these comma strokes, as I mentioned when we wrote these letters before, sometimes instead of a comma stroke, I use a tiny little loop. So especially in the case for the w to r, if you were to change this first comma stroke to a loop, it might read a little bit easier. So that's the case, that's totally fine. For me, I think this is still legible, but you might disagree. So if you want to change this comma stroke on the w to a loop, to make it more legible, feel free to do that and try it out. Three more letters to go. Let's do the x to the e. You can actually stop halfway, I did go all the way up in the previous set here. It's okay if you do go all the way up, just make sure to cover that point with the next letter. Let's try x to h. Now for this one, I probably do want to go all the way up to the waistline, and then do my h. Lastly, let's do x to o. For this one, I'm going to stop about halfway or maybe even like 75 percent all the way there, and then write my o. Let's do y to I. Since the I starts with an undertone, you can go all the way up to the waistline. Just make sure to keep that distance nice and narrow. Let's look at y to o. Finally, y to s. You want to go all the way up to the waistline for the s. Last but not least, let's look at the letter z, z to a. So the a is an oval strokes, I'm going to stop about halfway, then do the a. Let's look at z to u. You can go all the way up to the waistline. Let's do one more. Great job working on all of these connecting letters. Next, let's try and write some words.
13. Lowercase words: Hey, everyone. Now, that you know how to connect letters, let's practice writing some words together. If you don't have a list of words, just a handy. Sometimes I like to go online to randomwordgenerator.com, and I already have it open here on my iPad. You can choose the number of words that you want to have displayed at a time. You can choose what letter it starts with, I don't usually fill that out and then in the word size, you want to change that to word length. Then you can choose equals, less than, or greater than, but I'm going to keep it equals because we're going to do some three lettered words, and do some four-lettered words and five letters. So let's start with three, and then I'm going to change the number of words up here to three as well. Right now, this word is just up here as an example, but once I press "Return" or this blue button generate, it will give me lots of different words, you can see here that it changes every time I press this blue button here. You can just keep generating until you get some words that you like. I like to have words that have a variety of letters, for example, this one has a lot of descenders, which is fine if I want to practice descenders, but maybe I want something that has just more variations. This one has a couple of ascenders and a couple of descenders so that's a pretty good a selection of words. If you don't want to do random words, if you go over down here, scroll down, it says other random generators and you can see some other types of generators like random noun, verb, adjective, sentence, phrase, et cetera. You can choose either from down here, but for this exercise, we'll keep it with just random word. I already chose a couple of different words using the random word generator. So we'll go ahead and practice those now. The first word that will practice is fax, F-A-X. Remember how we connect our letters? So we go to an oval, you can stop that exit stroke about halfway and I'll write it a few more times on this line here. The next word that we'll write, is day and that's a pretty common word since every day of the week has that word. So you've got the letter d, then the a, and the y. I'll write it one more time. Again, remember to take a mini pause and pick up your pen after each stroke. The final three-letter word that we'll write is rib, R-I-B. Let's move on to four-lettered words. Let's write the word plug, P-L-U-G. Next let's write the word lace, L-A-C-E. Lastly, let's write the word harm, H-A-R-M. Now let's write a couple of five-letter words. Now the longer the word gets, the more you really have to be in tune with the strokes that you're writing, so that each letter doesn't seem so overwhelming or intimidating. So again, remember, go back to the basics, go back to the basic strokes and the modified strokes so that you have those down really well. Again, it's okay if you need to go back to the basics and just practice those strokes and modified strokes over and over again. You want to get to the point where they seem really natural to you and that you don't have to overthink it. Onto the first five-letter word, let's write the word donor, D-O-N-O-R. Let's write the word fresh, F-R-E-S-H. The last word that we'll write is salon, S-A-L-O-N. Great job in writing all of these words with me. I hope it was helpful, as you thought through connecting each stroke, just as we practiced in the previous videos. Remember to take it slow. There's no rush, and always, always think about the strokes that you're writing. In the next videos, we'll look at upper-case letters. I'll see you there.
14. Uppercase, A-M: Hey everyone. Let's write the uppercase alphabet together. Now, these upper case letters can look different depending on the style. There are so many styles out there. But in this particular class, remember that we're using my particular alphabet. So my style, I have a couple of different styles under my belt, but my default or my go to style has really simple and trends strokes. It uses minimal flourishes. I tried to use as much of the eight basic strokes and some of the modified strokes, I tried to keep my alphabet within those boundaries. Aside from this default style, I have a more elegant or sophisticated style. Then I also have a more casual look too. Depending on what the project is, I'll use one of these three styles. Sometimes I mix the styles and sometimes I forget exactly what my letters look like. But for the most part, in this default style, I stick to this one the most. Hopefully in a future class, I can go more in depth about how to create your complete own style and how to create really elaborate uppercase letters. But for now, we're going to learn the uppercase alphabet in my Audrey style. Here we go. Let's get started with the letter A. For my letter A, I start with a long upstroke all the way to the ascender line, and then I basically do an undertone, but starting here and then I dipped below the base line, like so. Then I do my cross stroke. Now, remember that these upper case letters don't necessarily have to connect to the next Letter. if I'm feeling like it, I can make this underturn really exaggerated and I can come really far down even below the descender line and write it like that. But in the more just standard, I keep it close and stop right about the baseline. Let's write that a few more times on this line. For the letter B, it's going to have an entrance stroke that you will see again and again. Let's practice that one first. You're going to start just above the waist line, and then come down with a long downstroke to the baseline. Then we're going to come back up almost at 180 degrees, but really following this downstroke here, and then making the first loop of the B, right about there. It's occupying the space between the waistline and the ascender line. The bottom part of the B is going to be a lot longer and it's going to dip below the baseline. Then have that same loop that we've seen in the lowercase b and p. Again, we've got this little entrance stroke, this little loop. Downstroke, come back up, keep it really tight. First loop, second loop, or a second downstroke, I guess. It looks like a descender stroke. Let's write the B a few more times. In the letter C, we're going to start at the ascender line, make a small loop. Create your C, and then create another loop at the bottom. So a small loop and then a medium size loop, I guess, down here. Start at the ascender line small loop, write the C medium loop. The capital D is going to have the same entrance stroke as the capital B, and it's going to have that same downstroke and then upstroke as well. But instead of two humps, like it does it B, the letter D only has one. That's same entrance stroke. Come down, come back up, long downstroke, dip below the baseline. Then that same loop that we've seen in the lowercase b and p, and here in the capital B. Let's try that again. The capital E is going to look very similar to the capital C. It's going to have that same top small loop. It's going to have two humps for the E, and then also this medium loop down here. Start at the ascender line, small loop, the first hump, the second hump, then the loop. You want to stop here at the baseline. The upper case F is one of my favorite letters to write. We're going to start with this swash just under the ascender line. Somewhere between the waistline and the ascender line. So start your swash, come around but then come through that downstroke and then do a small downstroke like the commas stroke and then do a long cross stroke at the top. For the capital G, we're going to have a big loop like this and then do another loop like that. Then you're going to do a descender stroke and come up to the waistline. Let's try that again. For the capital H, we're going to do the same entrance stroke as we did for the B and the D. Then the next part we're going to write in one seamless stroke. You're going to come down to the baseline, create a small loop, go back up to the waistline, downstroke, and then end at the baseline. So we have a small loop here at the bottom, and then another small loop up at the top. If you don't have the loops, it's not a big deal. But it's just having that seamless motion going from bottom to top, back down. Try to keep the width of the edge consistent unlike what I did here, this is much more narrow than this one. The next two letters, the I and the J are sometimes hard to distinguish. So for me, the letter I is smaller than the letter J. So for the I, you're going to start at the waistline. You're going to create a curve that goes clockwise, but that looks like that, similar to the entrance strokes that we did for the H and the D and the B but it's a little bit more open. Then we're going to do a swash like so. You can close this gap if you want to, you don't have to. Sometimes leaving it open just creates a variety but again, start at the waistline, create that upstroke swash and then a big swash. Again, this is just how I write the letter I, some people write it differently and that's totally fine as long as you are consistent in your alphabet. Now for comparison, the J is going to look very similar to the I but instead of starting at the waistline, we're going to start at the baseline and create that same entrance stroke and then we're going to do a small loop at the top and then do a long descender stroke like so. So start at the baseline, create a small loop but the top, descender stroke. For me, this loop is what separates the J from the I. The letter K is going to have that same entrance stroke for the B, the D, and the H. So let's write that first since we're familiar with it now and then a downstroke, and you're going to stop, pick up your pen and then we got to create the first small swash up here between the waistline and the ascender line. Then the second one, it's going to come down below the waistline like so. Sometimes I like to add a little loop right here in the middle, you can try that too. So the entrance stroke, downstroke, lift up your pen, go up to the ascender line, come down, and then if you're going to create the loop, I like to create it to the left of that downstroke. So I just intersected it and I create my loop and then do the downstroke there. Sometimes it can look a little messy especially if you're dragging your ink. So just use your best judgment. For the L, we're going to use a similar stroke as we did for the G and you create a big loop like that but then come down to the baseline, small loop, dip below the baseline and then come back up. So that same motion that we did for the G, big loop, little loop, dip below, come back up. A part of creating your own alphabet and your own style, is having consistency. So something like using the same stroke that I did in the G and the L, or using that same entrance stroke like I did for the B and the D and the H and K and other letters. That's going to be really important as you start developing your own style. Because having that repetition is what makes your alphabet look cohesive. All right, let's finish off this sheet with the letter M. For me, the uppercase M and N look just like the lowercase version. They're just bigger and taller and they have an entrance stroke. So I'm going to use that same entrance stroke like I have been using for a lot of my letters, and then I'm going to write my capital M, almost exactly as I would the lowercase m, except I have the humps coming down. In the next video, we'll finish up the alphabet.
15. Uppercase, N-Z: As I mentioned, the letter M and N, I like to write just as big versions of the lowercase letters and then just add the entrance stroke. You should be familiar with this entrance stroke by now. The uppercase O is also just a big version of the lowercase letter. I'm going to start about halfway between the waistline and the ascender line, do a big down stroke, a curved one, come all the way around, hit the ascender line, and then come around like that. It's okay if you venture above the waistline or below the descender line. It's not that big of a deal. They're just there more as guidelines, they're not there as rules or boundaries that you have to stay within. The letter P is going to seem familiar because we have that same entrance stroke. Come down, come back up, and then small loop, and then stop at the waistline. You can dip a little bit below the waistline to down, up, and meet in the middle. This is like writing the first half of the uppercase B. The letter Q is always interesting to me and there are a couple of different ways that you can write it. I like to write it almost like the number 2. We're going to start about halfway within the x-height, create a large curve like this, deep below the waistline, small loop just like in the letter L, and finish like that. It looks like the number 2. The letter R will be similar to previous letters that we've written. That same entrance stroke, come down, come back up, and just like the letter P, you can stop there, and then the next stroke is going to be similar to what we did in the letter K, coming down and then back up to the baseline. It's like writing the letter B or the letter P, like that, and then the second half of the letter K. The uppercase S is also a really fun letter to write. We're going to start in the space between the waistline and the ascender. We're going to create upstroke and a small loop like that. Then we we're going to do a swash down to the baseline and then curve back around. Big swash, like so. It's okay if you intersected this first line here or if you didn't, it's totally fine. You can make that tail longer or not. You can make it short too. This is where your variations come in. I like to do a long tail right there. Sometimes I intersect both times, and sometimes I don't. It's not always an exact science. The T is going to look very similar to the F, so start about halfway between the waistline and the baseline with this swash. Come around, but then stop. For the F, we continued and did the comma stroke. We're going to stop there and finish with the cross stroke. For the uppercase U, use that entrance stroke that we're so familiar with now. Then it's just two large under turns. The V is basically, a big lowercase V. Again, that entrance stroke under turned and then the comma stroke like that. This is what separates it. That comma stroke is what makes it different from the U. You also want to make this under turn a little bit more narrow as well. The W is going to be very similar to the V, with just an additional under turn. Three more letters to go. For the X. I'm just going to have a very similar entrance stroke like we've been doing. But, instead of it being so long horizontally is going to be a little bit shorter. Then from here, I'm going to transition straight into that under turn, stopping at the baseline, and then the cross stroke. The Y is going to have that same stroke that we did in the X. It's a little bit shorter, just like that. Then a big under turn that goes all the way to the baseline, and then the descender stroke. Finally, the Z is also going to have that same entrance stroke. It's going to look like that. The first one, and then a descender stroke. If you look at it really closely, this second half, the right half looks like the letter or the uppercase B. Great job in writing all of the uppercase letters with me. Again, this is my unique style. As you practice, and start to feel comfortable and maybe want to start branching out into your own style, remember that you want to try to use consistent strokes. Try to base it off of the eight basic strokes or if you have modified strokes, then try to incorporate those as well. Well, I hope you had a lot of fun. In the next video, we'll write some names to practice both the uppercase and lowercase letters. I'll see you there.
16. Uppercase Words: Hey, everyone. Let's write some names together. As I showed you before, I used random word generator to find some names for us to write together. I did some four letter, five letter, and six letter names. Let's start with Emil. Remember how I said, the capital letters don't necessarily have to connect to the next letter. But if it's natural like this uppercase E, then you can go ahead and connect to the next letter. But in some other examples, it might not be as natural. Lets write this name a few more times. Next, let's write Liza. My L doesn't always connect nicely to the next letter. I'm going to just write my capital L like normal. Then give a little bit of space, and then start with the I. Again, not every uppercase letter has to connect. For our last four letter name, let's write, Faye. Now that capital F is another example, where you're probably not going to be able to connect to the next letter. That's totally okay. Now, we'll write a five letter names. Let's start with Heidi. You got that entrance stroke that we practiced a lot. Notice how my uppercase H didn't connect to the E. It just dipped below the baseline and stayed there, and that's totally okay. Let's write Rufus. Also when the uppercase R, I dipped below the waistline and just stayed right there. Our last five lettered name is Tonya. Now let's write some six letter names. It's getting longer. Let's write Morris. This name has a lot going on. We've got the uppercase M, but it nicely connects to the o. That's great. We also have the o to r connection, which can be tricky. Then double r's, which can also be tricky. This name is fun, but maybe also challenging. Let's write Benito. The first half of the B, looks like that. Remember we're going to dip below the baseline, come up, that loop that we've seen before in the lowercase b and the lowercase p. This nicely connects to our next letter two. The last six letter name that we'll write is Glenda. Remember in the G, we have that big loop that looks like that. Then a descender stroke, and this is going to transition nicely into the next letter so you can connect the two just like that. All right, I hope that was a lot of fun writing some names together. You can also practice writing names of cities or countries or any other proper noun that you can think of. You can even practice writing your address, which brings me to my next video, where we'll practice writing numbers and some punctuation marks. I'll see you there.
17. Numbers & Punctuation: Hey, everyone. In this video, we're going to go over numbers and some simple punctuations. Just like what we've seen in the lowercase and uppercase alphabet, I tried to use similar strokes that we've seen before in the eight basic strokes and modified strokes, and these are in my distinct style. Some of these might look familiar because they could be a part of other styles, but for me, all of these numbers go together because they create a cohesive look with all of my alphabets. Let's get started. First, we'll write the numbers 0 through 9, and then a couple of punctuation marks. Let's start with a 0. It's essentially the oval stroke, but it has a more oval shape. You're going to start maybe around the waistline, come up to the ascender line, down to the baseline, and then close it up. It might be hard to get a really smooth oval, and that's totally okay. It doesn't have to be perfect, but the more you practice, the easier it will get, that is for sure. For the number 1, recall the uppercase I. We did that small little stroke like that, and then we're going to do a straight downstroke so it's just a little bit fancy. This time, you don't want to close it up where you started. Where that downstroke is, you want to leave it open so that it looks like the number 1 just has a fancy hairdo or something. For the number 2, it's going to look eerily similar to the letter Q, at least the uppercase one. We're going to start at the waistline, come up, come down, but this time, no small loop like the uppercase Q does. Instead, mimic a cross stroke, but it's going to be hovering right around the baseline just like that. The three is going to seem really familiar because it's going to look like the second half of the uppercase B or it'll look like the uppercase Z as well. You're going to start just below the ascender line, have that first hump or that first curved downstroke. Then the second one, we're going to dip below the baseline like that so it really looks like the second half of the uppercase B. For the number 4, start at the ascender line with a downstroke, come down just below the waist line and then flare out a little bit to the left, and then using the same cross stroke, cut across like that, and then a long downstroke from the ascender line to the baseline. The number 5's going to start similarly. Come down to the left and then do a part of a backwards oval. Go to the right, clockwise, and then down and around, and then a cross stroke at the top. You can actually dip below the baseline too if you want. But I like to keep it somewhat compact. The number 6 is going to seem really simple. Just start at the ascender, long downstroke and they come around. I don't always close it up. For some reason, when you don't close it, it seems fancier. But you can close it up if you totally want to as well. In the number 7, we're going to start with a comma stroke, but just a really short downstroke right over by the ascender line, and then a cross stroke and a long downstroke. Short downstroke, cross stroke, another downstroke. The number 8 we're going to start at the waistline, go counterclockwise, swash, cross, and then a long tail up. Again start with the waistline, counterclockwise, swash, cross and then come up. Again, sometimes I like to extend beyond the ascender line. Finally the number nine, I do a small oval just between the ascender and the waistline, and then a long downstroke to the baseline. That's it for the numbers. Let's do a couple of punctuation marks. The exclamation point and the question mark, it's going to look pretty basic. The exclamation point, I just do a long downstroke and then a short downstroke right at the baseline. I'll just do a couple of those. The question mark, I like to incorporate the swash, so it's the opposite of the number 8. I'm going to move clockwise and then do a swash like that. Remember everything has got to be on this slant. Your question mark is also going to follow that slant. Swash, short downstroke. Then let's do a couple of ampersands. For the ampersand, it always ends up looking like the uppercase E to me. I don't know why, but it just does. But it's going to start like the uppercase S. We had that big tail and we had that little loop, remember? But this time I'm going to bring that small loop a little bit further down, and then do the bottom half of the ampersand there. If I'm feeling a little fancy, sometimes from here, I do another tail. I'll do it a couple more times over here. Again, a long tail, small loop, big oval, and sometimes an extra tail. I'll do it a couple more times on this line. Finally, some other common puntuations are the comma, the period, and quotation marks, and also parentheses. We'll do the comma. You're going to start right here at the baseline or just stay here at the baseline. We've already did the comma stroke, but the punctuation comma has to curve to the left. Put the pressure on and then quickly lift off and then drag the little tail. Then for the period, just short downstrokes right at the baseline. For punctuation marks, it's basically these commas that we just wrote, but they're going to be higher up. They're going to be mostly in this area between the waistline and the ascender line. For the starting quotation marks, you'll start with hardly any pressure, and then add some pressure. Then for the ending quotation marks is just the opposite. Start with the pressure and then let go, just like the comma stroke. For the parenthesis, again, you want to make sure that you follow this slant lines. You can start at the ascender line, curve, and then come down to the baseline. Remember you want this to slant correctly. You want the right amount of space in between those two lines. You can use a slant lines as a guideline, so you know about how much to curve and when to start and stop, and same thing with the other side of the parenthesis too. Well, that is it for the numbers and the punctuations. You have officially learned the entire alphabets, both lowercase and uppercase, numbers and punctuations in my unique Audrey style. I'll see you in the next video where we'll talk about your project. I'll see you there.
18. Project time!: Hey everyone, for your project, I want you to write an address. You can use a fictional address that you've heard in a movie or on a TV show, or you can just totally make it up as you go. For me, I'm going to use my name, but I'm going to use a fake address. I can also do an entire class on just envelope calligraphy. We're not going to do anything too fancy, like centering or anything like that, but writing addresses gives you the chance to practice both uppercase and lowercase and the numbers. That's why we're going to use this as our project. I'm going to use an address that's based in the US, since that's where I am, and it's usually three or four lines. I'm just going to write the first line here, second, et cetera. I'm going to use my name, which is going to be Mrs. Audrey Ko. That's my name. Then, in a US based address, the second line is the house number and the street number, just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, just like in practice all of my numbers. Then I'm going to write the address, Starry Lane. Since I'm in the Chicagoland area, I'll just use Chicago, Illinois. When we write out US addresses, we usually write out the state name. Finally, we write the ZIP code on the fourth line. Our zip codes are five numbers. I used 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. For my zip code, I'll just use the remaining five numbers, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. There you have it. This is what your final project is going to look like. Use your name or a fictional name and use a fake address, so that you can practice your lowercase and uppercase letters, as well as the numbers.
19. Manipulating Letters and Exploring Styles: Hey, everyone. In this video, I want to do a quick overview of how to start developing your style, and how to manipulate some of these letters. Now, that you know how to write them properly, the word that I'll be using as our example is "hello". Now, if we were to write that as we've learned, it would look like this. One of the easiest ways to start manipulating these letters is to employ bounce. Now, I could do an entire class on just the bounce, but this is going to be a really quick overview. Basically, I like to use any undertones, or down-strokes, or ascenders to employ the bounce. For example, I'm going to write "hello" again, but I'm going to extend this undertone, this down-stroke, and either the first, or the second l, and I'm going to extend it below the baseline, I mean. Let's try that. I'm still going to use my entrance, and exit strokes though. That won't change. I've got my ascenders stroke for the h like normal, but now I'm going to write the undertone, and that down-stroke is going to dip below the baseline. The "e" will be written normally, and let's do the bounce on the first. Come below the baseline, but this connecting stroke still has to come up, so I can write my second l. It's a settle difference, but this looks a little bit more fun, and playful rather than this. There's nothing wrong with this one, but this just has a little bit more flair. For the next one, let's keep these bounces, but I want to make my e and my "o" a little bit smaller, like smaller than the x-height, and I might even make this undertones small as well. Let's see what I mean by that. This first ascenders still going to be the same, but like I said, I'm going to make my undertone small, but still do the bounce. I'm going to write my "e", but I'm going to write it a little bit towards the waistline. I'm going to do the balance on the first l. My second l will be normal, and now, my "o" is going to be small as well. Look how we started manipulating these letters a little bit more. We have the same bounce that we used in the second example, but now we made this undertone a lot shorter, and our vowels, the "e" and the "o" smaller as well. Let's try manipulating these even more if you could imagine. Instead of doing the loops on these a sanders, let's take those away, and see what it looks like. Now, I'm going to write it a little bit closer to the second one with just a simple bounces, but take away the loops. I forgot the bounce. Let's try that again. Because we took away the loops, I feel like this hello seems really casual and approachable. Let's try another style. Let's take these loops that we've been writing in the ascenders, and make them really skinny. I still want a loop, but I want to make it as skinny as possible, and I'm going to do it kind of similar to these bounces here. See how skinny I made that loop? I forgot the bounce. I'll do it in a second one. I feel like these loops could probably still be skinnier, but that's how it is. Do you see how we're making just small adjustments from one to the next. Instead of small loops, why don't we exaggerate it and make them really big, and then I'm going to make my undertones and these vowels really small too. I need a lot of room. I'm going to make it really wide. Make that really small. Write the e up here, make the loop on the l really big. Another really big loop. What do you guys think about that one? Looks fun. I could probably add a little bit more space between the e and the l. They look a little squished, but other than that, it looks pretty cool. Now, keep in mind that we are trying to be as consistent as possible. Remember, even within a style, you don't want to mix, like not having a loop, but then suddenly, having a loop or mixing a really large loop within the same word. If I were to mix styles and show you how weird it looks, this is what it would look like. Let's say that for the age, I am going to use that huge loop. But for the first l, I'll do just no loop. Then I'll do a skinny loop, and finish my word. When you look at this example, it just looks really messy, and chaotic. I want to describe it as elegant, but then this middle l that doesn't have a loop is confusing, but I can't describe it as casual, because I liked the loops, but I don't understand why these loops are not the same size. All of that is just really confusing information. When you're doing the bounce, again, you don't want to overdo it. You don't need to bounce every single letter. Sometimes doing every other one or every two, or three letters is good. Then you also want to be consistent in the styles. If you're going to do a skinny ascender loop, keep it consistent. If we're going to do a huge one, do huge ones and all of the other ones. Same thing with this one. If you're not going to do a loop, don't do it at all. Let's try one more type of style, and it's going to be kind of similar to this one, and this time I don't want to make this small loop on my "o", because I feel like this is competing with these large loops. I'm going to take away the loop on this o, and then this "h", I'm going to write probably, in one or two strokes. I might not lift up my pen after this a sander, and keep this undertone really short. I'll try to show you what I mean by that. I'm going to do a huge loop, and then just do it like that. It's more just like a little hill, and I do a really tiny "e", because if you think about it. If this little overturn, or this compound curve, or compound stroke, this is supposed to be this x-height. But if I made it this tiny, that means my other x-height letters, like the "e", and the "o", also have to follow suit, like we've been saying. If this compound stroke is really tiny. Then this "e" also has to be just as tiny. I'm going to do my big loop on the l bounce. Big loop as well here, and this time my "o" is also going to be really tiny, and like I said, I'm not going to do the loop there and exit that way. Let's take a closer look at some of these styles. We started with our basic one, which is the style that we've been learning in this class, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just your standard ABCs, but if you wanted to manipulate the letters a little bit. You can first add a little bit of bounce, and the bounce is, could be added on the undertones, the compound strokes, the ascender strokes, and any other big down-strokes. You can also adjust where your x-height letters. Like in this example, the "e" and the "o", you can adjust where they are placed within the x-height. They can go towards the top, towards the waistline, or towards the bottom at the baseline. In the second line, we decided to omit the loops in the ascenders, making it seem really casual, and then we added the loops, but kept them really skinny. Then did the other end of the spectrum where we made the loops really big, and then this was an example of why you should not mix styles. It looks confusing, and it looks like you're a bad calligrapher, which you're not. But when you mix styles like this, it just sends mixed messages, and then the last one was an example where we really manipulated almost every single letter. We either exaggerated the loops. We made the x-height letters really tiny because they have to match, and then we also added bounce. Then we got rid of the little loop on the "o". We changed at least one, or two things on every single letter. If you were to compare this last one where we manipulated almost every single letter to our original. They look so different. But because each in its own way has its own style, has its own alphabet, and it's consistent. They're both legible, they both have their own unique styles, and their own personalities. As you continue to practice the basic strokes, and the alphabet both lowercase, and uppercase in this class, I do want you to try experimenting a little bit. Just like we did here, but only do this once you are comfortable writing in the standard way. If you start by writing like this, it can get confusing, and you might get lost, because you haven't built this type of knowledge on a solid foundation. Always start with the basic strokes, and using the standard alphabet. Then from there, start manipulating and have fun, and just be creative. Hopefully, in the future, I'll come out with a more intense and in-depth class on how to really develop your own style, because I think it wants its own class. But until then, at least you have some basic knowledge on how to manipulate letters so that you can just try out different styles. I'd love to see what you do with these. I'll see you in the last video for some final thoughts.
20. Final Thoughts: Congratulations, you just finished this ultimate guide to modern calligraphy with a pointed pen. You should feel super proud of yourself because hopefully you're feeling more confident that you can write modern calligraphy. Now, you're ready to learn some next level stuff. Also, don't forget to post your project so you can incorporate everything you've learned in this class and show off your work. Next level stuff includes developing your own style and flourishes, which by the way, I have a class on. So I hope you'll check that out. In the class, I take you through the basics of flourishes. I show you some key places where you can add flourishes and then we just practice and practice. After this class, be sure to head over there and keep the learning going. Remember that anything learned just takes practice and calligraphy is the same way. Give yourself grace and about 30-60 minutes a day to practice. You will continue to see improvement as you stick to the basics and start on the right foundation. If you're on social media, I'd love to see your work. Make sure to tag me @ThingsUnseenDesigns and use the hashtag calligraphyWithTUD. Thanks again for taking this class. I'm so glad I can be here as a resource for you and be part of your calligraphy journey. Until next time, happy writing. Bye.
