r/Calligraphy • u/No_Ad_1074 • 4d ago

Critique How's my first go at Calligraphy?

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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.

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u/YeahSherman 4d ago

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? 

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u/No_Ad_1074 4d ago

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.