Calligraphy - Italic

8/10/2019 Calligraphy - Italic

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Italic calligraphy

Lean, assured and always dynamically stylish, italic calligraphy looks like a model alphabetwearing a Milanese suit. Not surprising, given that the name 'italic' refers to the origins of the

script in Italy.Today, handwritten italic alphabets remain everpopular for !uotations, wedding invitations, artcalligraphy and improving handwriting style.

This page offers you general practical information about how to write and recognise italic letters.

"ou may also be interested in the more specificitalic lettering pagefor detailed guidance on howto form individual italic letters, practice e#ercises etc.

If you look at the above illustration, you will see that an italic calligraphy alphabet shows$

a distinctive %lo&enge shape to the body of letters a, b, d, g etc

elegant, narrow branching strokes forming the shoulders of letters such as b, h, m, n, p etc

!uite long ascenders and descenders

usually a slight slant to the right, about ( degrees

a cursive, running !uality and an upwards %flick at the finish of many letters

a contrast between heavier pressure on the downstrokes and much lighter pressure on the

upstrokes

some characteristic letter forms$ for e#ample, a and g are plain and open) ascenders often

have a slight flourish

"ou will also find when you look around that %italic calligraphy can in fact refer to many, ratherdiffering calligraphy alphabets. %Italic is the name of a family of scripts, not *ust one e#act form.

+ut all italic alphabets will show four or more of the above characteristics, and especially the firstfour.

sually, italic calligraphy is written about ( nibwidths high. This means the height of an italicletter is a little greater in proportion to the nibwidth than many other calligraphic letterforms.

Calligraphy - Italic 1
http://www.calligraphy-skills.com/italic-lettering.htmlhttp://www.calligraphy-skills.com/italic-lettering.htmlhttp://www.calligraphy-skills.com/italic-lettering.html


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-o you may wish to change to a narrower nib if youve previously been writing gothic, roundhandor uncial or else, if you want to keep on with the same nib, rule a page of wider guidelines towrite on.

/eep your pen angle at 0( degrees. This is important for forming the branching strokes.

"ou will also notice in the illustration of 'a' above, and on the more specific 'italic lettering'page,

that !uite a few italic letterforms involve pushing the pen nib to the left a little, or upwards fromthe baseline.

Now, you may be thinking, 12ait did she saypushing the pen?+ut I thought we were supposedto lead the nib across the page and never push it31

"es, that isthe rule. It is the general rule, in order to learn how to handle a s!uareended nib forwriting wellformed calligraphy scripts. 4nce your hand has learnt that general rule and you canuse it instinctively, you can start to bend it. Italic calligraphy is more cursive than other forms ofcalligraphy and to write it fluently does occasionally re!uire pushing the pen, carefully.

54f course it is possible to write a slower italic by forming the letters in separate sections withoutpushing the pen. /eep a careful eye on the 'counter' or white space inside the letters if you dothis so it doesnt become lumpy or too angular.6

Some more basic principles for writing good italic calligraphy:

"ou can alter the appearance of your italic calligraphy simply by altering the amount of whitespace you leave between letters in a word, even if the letters are the same si&e$

-pacing is always important but in italic calligraphy especially so. The subtle, regular forms ofitalic letters are sensitive to irregular spacing and proportions. 57ont imagine that the e#amplesyou see on these pages are always perfect e#amples of how to space36

8ood spacing is not *ust about having the same amount of space between letters. If you draweach letter in an imaginary bo# of the same si&e, you will find that the words look uneven anddistorted. +ecause italic calligraphy is a mi#ture of straight and curved lines, the rules for spacinghave to do with the relationships between the curves and the straights$

http://www.calligraphy-skills.com/italic-lettering.htmlhttp://www.calligraphy-skills.com/italic-lettering.html


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9s you can see, letter spacing controls the white space in betweenletters. -eparately from that,the actual width of italic letters in relation to their height is another important consideration. Thisis about the shape and si&e of the 'counter' or white space inside any letterform$

:ersonally, I find that to write a pleasing italic alphabet re!uires more practice and warmingupe#ercises than gothic and roundhand. :ossibly others would disagree and say that all scriptsre!uire a warmup first. That's a good routine to get into. +ut italics more than gothic or uncialsdo demand confident, rapid formation of the letters with the whole hand.

-o dont criticise your own italic calligraphy too harshly if you dont like it straight off. 9s infashion, cooking or 7I", it takes a little work behind the scenes to bring off simplicity and

elegance at speed.

:ractice e#ercises include writing rows of ms and ns 5'arcades'6 and many 'a's and 'o's, trying toget them the same each time.

5These will come up again in the italic lettering pages36

"our hand, arm, shoulder and eyes need to feel rela#ed, focused and coordinated.

Try to build up a rhythm with the downstrokes. ;oncentrate on moving your whole hand whileforming letters, not *ust your fingers.

There are more tips and illustrations for writing specific letters, and for analysing your italics, onthe ne#t page.

2hen your hand has thoroughly learned the 'feel' of the letters, you can more confidentlyproduce the easylooking, fluid strokes which distinguish italic calligraphy from any othercalligraphic style.



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Italic lettering, and how to form italic lettershttp$


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thing is to use a tiny motion of the nib one way or the other to get the ink flow cleanly started fora wellformed letter.

7on't mi# methods within the same passage of italic calligraphy3

4f course it is *ust 'i' and 'l' that are formed of onlya downstroke. 4ther letters needa horizontal line or cross-stroketo complete them, so practise drawing smooth hori&ontalstoo$

7on't worry about 'g' and 'b' for the moment. They come up later on with their complicatd

curves. I *ust wanted to show you that hori&ontals are important for several letters. The italicforms to practise right now include *ust 't', '*' and 'f'.

Notice that the 'tails' on descenders, for '*', 'f', etc, are formed by *oining a crossstroke to adownstroke with a slight curve into a thin line. 9lthough the strokes are almost at right angles toeach other, they do not *oin by forming a sharp corner.

4nce you can draw a short downstroke and a hori&ontal, it's time to combine them in a differentway again by using a branching stroke.This 'branch' is a key element in italic lettering.

>ere it is in its simplest form to write an italic letter 'r'$

Notice how the same branching stroke forms the 'r' when stopped high, but if carried on downforms an 'n'. @!ually, a slightly narrow italic letter 'n' without a final flick is the first half of anitalic 'm'. -ee how in the final 'm' there are two 'n's *oined together= 5I've drawn a red bo#around the second one.6 Italic lettering is very much about repeated shapes.

In the illustration above, I have shown the branch drawn right from the bottom of the letter atthe baseline up 'through' the first downstroke. This method gives a more cursive feel to the letter

and will help you to write italics more rapidly and fluently in time.To push the nib up you must hold it very lightly, keeping it always at 0( degrees, and 'skim' itgently up across the page into the branching point. 9s the pen stroke begins to curve diagonallyup to the right, separating from the downstroke, you can let the nib 'bite' the page a little more.4nce you are into the ne#t downstroke, put normal pressure back on the nib.

-o the rule is pressure right offfor upstrokes, light pressure onfor downstrokes.

>owever, if you find it difficult to do upstrokes at all, you can start your branching higher up, asfollows$



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The first 'm' is drawn with the more cursive upstrokes. The second is drawn with diagonal strokesstarting higher. Try to make sure your arches are smooth with no sharp internal angles wherethey meet the downstrokes.

4nce you have got the hang of drawing branching strokes, a couple of other italic letters comewithin reach$

The italic letter 'h' as you can see is an 'n' with a high ascender to start with. Make sure thesecond, shorter downstroke is parallel with the first.

The 'k' should start its branch *ust like an 'n' or 'h', then tuck sharply in to form the bow. 7rawthe leg out so its foot strikes the baseline a little back from the furthest point of the bow. Thishelps gives the body of the 'k' a slight slant, in line with its ascender and the rest of the italicalphabet.

Two more letters formed using the italic 'branch' are 'b' and 'p'. They are *ust the same e#ceptthat one has an ascender, the other a descender. >ere is 'b' to start with$

2hen drawing an italic letter 'b', form the branching curve !uite narrow at the top and let it bulgeout a little, gracefully, before curving back in again towards the base.

The hori&ontal *oining stroke should not be too long and s!uare or your 'b' will look clunky.

>ere is 'p', for which e#actly the same rules apply$

4kay, I reali&e that I didn't mention that little 'tail' on the downstroke of the 'p'. It makes it fit

with 'g', '*' and so forth.



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5?or a flourish on ascenders in italic lettering, you can draw a hori&ontal off the top of the lettertowards the right, *ust like the tail on the 'p' in reverse. Then the 'b' would be an e#act duplicateinreverse of the 'p'.6

Now for a different kind of branching stroke$

These two italic letters look !uite simple to draw but make sure your pen is at 0( degrees andthat you have a slight slant on your downstrokes so that you get a good contrast between thethick and thin.

9gain, the version I show uses an upstroke. If you have trouble with that, stop the curve of the

letterform before it starts moving upwards, and draw your downstroke to *oin with it.

+ranching strokes should be practised a lot.Now is a good time to learn about arcades. Theseare e#ercises consisting of rows and rows 5and pages and pages6 of scallopshapes like multiple'n's and 'u's$

It is also very useful to find se!uences of italic letters like 'minimum', 'nilulinul' or 'munumini' andto write these repeatedly to practise transitioning from one form to another within a line of italiclettering.

5This is e#cellent handwriting practice, by the way.6

@nough munumini= @nough branching strokes= Never fear, you will be back to practise themsome more before long $6

Let's get onto some curved letters$



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Notice with these three that the same basic movement is used to create the first curved stroke.

Aemember that italic lettering has a slight slant, so the bottom curve of these letters should bepositioned a little further to the left than the top curve. That is decided when you make the firststroke. 7raw it to fit an imaginary slanting line.

9fter drawing that first curve, 'c' has a short, !uite straight top.

+y contrast, 'e' loops round very tightly with a longer hairline diagonal to meet the downstroke.

Make sure your 'o' is not circular but oval, and also slightly slanted. Imagine it is made of twotiny circles, one on top of the other and offset to the right. 7raw round these two tiny circles andyou'll get the slanting oval 'o'.

7rawing line after line of 'o's is another valuable e#ercise. I won't illustrate it here. "ou can

imagine all those &eros easily enough. 57raw a 'B' at the beginning and visualise the page as ne#tyear's income ... 6

Now for another rounded letter made of two offset circles$

This is another letter which it pays to practise again and again. 5Maybe I have said that for all theitalic lettering so far. It's true.6

There are two main pitfalls with 's' as an italic letter. 4ne is to make the finishingstrokes toohori&ontal and straight. This makes the 's' look spiky. 9nother danger is to make the first snakywiggle too wide and hori&ontal. This leads to an 's' with no slant to it a roundhand 's' instead ofan italic.

2hen you are reasonably happy with 's', it's a good time to move on to a whole new family ofitalic lettering forms$

To form an italic letter 'a' you may push the pen back a little from right to left to start with. +ringit round in a smooth lo&enge shape, with a slightly pointy base somewhat over to the left. 5This iswhat gives the body of the letter its slant.6 9dd a crossstroke at the top and a crisp downstrokeat the same slant as the rest of the letter 5and any other italic lettering on the page6.

The same techni!ue applies to 'd', with a long descender instead of a short downstroke$



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Try to get the descender of 'd' to overlap the upstroke perfectly. The bottom half of the lettershould look *ust like an 'a'.

5The 'd' looks a bit smaller than the 'a' here, but it's *ust the way I saved the graphics. It's still (nibwidths high.6

-ame again, with a descender this time and a tail, for 'g'$

9nd as you can imagine, it's if anything even simpler to draw a '!' in italic lettering$

That takes care of !uite a few letters.

Try to make sure that 'a', 'd', 'g' and '!' in your italic lettering have the same basic bodyshape aseach other.

9lso, you should notice that the curve of the first stroke in these letters also closely resemblesthat of 'c', 'e' and 'o'.

There are four letters left. I think of them as 'the pointy letters' but it is probably better to callthem 'diagonal' letters as they are composed mostly of straight diagonal lines. Let's start withtwo that closely resemble each other$

7on't go overboard with the curve on the last stroke. It's pronounced but shouldn't be bulgy.



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9lso, make sure that you draw your downstrokes on 'v' and 'w' closer to the vertical than the thinupstrokes. +y contrast, the upstrokes should be more angled across to the right. This again isabout getting a slant onto all of your italic lettering.

Last two letters3

This form of '#' is really !uite gratifying to draw. It is elegantly easy to form but looks fabulouswith its little 'ears'.

9s with 'v' and 'w', make sure that the first, thick downstroke of '#' is closer to the vertical, andthe thin crossstroke is more slanted at an angle. 4therwise, if both lines are at the same angle,the '#' will look too upright compared with the other, slanted forms in your italic lettering.

+y contrast with '#', '&' in italic is rather plain and surprisingly difficult to slant properly. :ractisemakes perfect ...

I think and hope we have now covered the alphabet.

;apital letters in italics is a whole other sub*ect. I hope you will soon have a chance to practisethose from another page on this site.



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Calligraphy - Italic

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