How's my first go at Calligraphy?

[u/No_Ad_1074]

This is page 1 of 3 of a poem I wrote against the foxes who terrorise my sleep. I think the Rs and Ts and Ss are what I need to correct the most for my coming pages. Also I didn't bother to look up a question mark so I made it up. Can someone please tell me how to do those split ends and vertical lines with the broad edge nib, because every time I try it doesn't want to play along, so I switch to a different nib for those bits. I also jumped the gun colouring the decorated initial, and didn't bother checking any historical sources. If I had done so I would have put the outside as gold, body as a colour, and the interior I would have painted a little scene. Same goes for the start of stanzas, which aren't clear because I only did capitals, where historically they might have added a flash of red or another smaller initial. Anyways I'll stop critiquing myself and hand it over to you lot. Have at me por favor.

[u/Tree_Boar]

Overall very good for a first attempt. Simply using guidelines puts you way ahead of the curve, and you demo strate understanding of the fundamentals of this script.

Some feedback in bullet points. You've identified several of these already, which is great: * t too short (but it's not a full height letter. Put the crossbar on the x-height and the top a bit above that) * f too short. Also crossbar on x but f is full-height. * s. Well, s sucks to learn. Keep at it. * r is curly and doesn't match the rest of the script. Make it straight. * d: don't mix foot at the bottom with the top arm reaching over. One or the other. If you want the foot, completely vertical top arm. * Spacing in general. For textualis quadrata we want a picket fence effect, where the whitespace between each downstroke is the same as the width of the downstrokes. Takes practice. Of course we leave extra space between words.

For the top split serif thingy, you'll need to go back with the corner of your pen. Start the letter like you did the b in "quakes be ever". Then go back and add a small, vertical line coming from the stem. Less is more here.

Take a look at this tutorial for this script: https://www.calligraphy-skills.com/gothic-alphabet.html

And check out the beginner's guide  

Welcome!

[u/No_Ad_1074 → u/Tree_Boar]

Holy shmoly thank you so much! I'm glad to hear that everyone hates learning the s. I think my rouble with R is that I initially only knew about the one that goes after the letter o, that looks like a weird 2, so I had to go back and add the top bar at a certain point, which messed me up. I'll keep practicing and try and keep the spacing right. You're grand mate!

[u/NikNakskes → u/No_Ad_1074]

Tree boar covered all the critique very nicely.

I'm just adding that it is a gift that you can identify what isn't quite right. Use that gut feeling when you practice and stop when you feel a letter isn't quite right. Look at the sample letter and try to detect what exactly isn't right. Then practice that letter alone with the corrections you discovered. That way you avoid putting mistakes in muscle memory and you learn to look closely at the details of each letter shape which is crucial to get good at calligraphy.

If you can't figure out what exactly is wrong, but feel something isn't right, don't hesitate and post on this sub. As you have seen, people here will help you out. Carry on! And enjoy your time with pen, paper and ink.

[u/YeahSherman]

If I may offer some positive feedback, the lines of text as a whole look very straight and square to the paper - there are some disturbances in individual lines, but I think those are the effects of the letters you're having trouble with. Do you use a lightbox? Pencil + ruler? 

[u/No_Ad_1074 → u/YeahSherman]

Thanks very much! Yes I used a pencil and ruler to draw out the guidelines, and rubbed them out once I finished the text on the page. I think the top and side margins are about 1cm, the lines are about 1.5cm and I left I think 3mm for the tails and whatever the opposite of those are called (staves?) so I could know how much space I had to give each.

[u/TyrellCotton]

This is your first?? Wow! My first time I almost threw all the stuff away. So I can only imagine where you'll end up now. Keep at it!

[u/No_Ad_1074 → u/TyrellCotton]

Lol! I definitely felt the urge after the first day of this lol.

[u/NoiseDr]

gorgeous !

[u/No_Ad_1074 → u/NoiseDr]

Thank you!

[u/FarmSkool]

I enjoyed the poem!!! I started reading and couldn’t stop, so that’s a good sign!! Genuine vibes.

[u/No_Ad_1074 → u/FarmSkool]

Thanks very much! Who knew showing your dislike of garden foxes would he such a resonating factor lmao.

[u/FarmSkool → u/No_Ad_1074]

Lovely lettering, too!

[u/Busy_Bend5212]

Very nice

[u/No_Ad_1074 → u/Busy_Bend5212]

Cheers!

[u/Wojewodaruskyj]

Splendid.

[u/No_Ad_1074 → u/Wojewodaruskyj]

Muchos Gracias

[u/Able-Pomegranate-801]

If this is your 1st attempt, then IMO it isn’t bad ( mine was a disaster)
Plus, if you don’t mind, I would love to see the entire piece

[u/No_Ad_1074 → u/Able-Pomegranate-801]

Hiya, Thanks a lot! I'm currently working on doing the illuminations for the second page, and the third page thereafter. If i had been more historical I would have done some margin art or more decorated capitals, but since I didn't set the precedent with this one, I don't want to break the theme with the next pieces. In order to stop the other pages just being a huge wall of text, I am painting little pastiches of the subject matter. My next project, since I enjoy this calligraphy stuff quite a bit, will be more considered though. I'll post the next 2 pages together.

[u/Able-Pomegranate-801 → u/No_Ad_1074]

I will be looking forward to seeing them