Calligraphy!

[afuna]

I went to a calligraphy class on Saturday. (My calligraphy teacher reads this. Ummmm you might want to avert your eyes while you still can <3)

Two things about calligraphy. First: calligraphy is easy.

As long as you start the stroke right, the pen basically does the work for you.

Whenever I force the stroke to become a particular shape, it looks horrible. But when I concentrate on getting the pen against the paper just so, the stroke follows naturally from the angle of the pen. It's gorgeous. It's magic. There are moments when one stroke in isolation from everything else is graceful and elegant.

Which brings me to my second point: calligraphy is hard.

Calligraphy is as much about one stroke as music is about one note. You have to get each stroke perfect and it has to be in harmony with the strokes around it. Distance, size, proportion -- all important. All *hard*

Resisting my inclination to fight the pen for control? Hard.
Recognizing a good stroke from a very bad one? Reasonably easy.
Recognizing a good stroke from a stroke that's almost there? Hard.
Deciding where to start the stroke so that it won't crowd against the previous one? Hard.
Following the mandated x-height? Hard.
Controlling the proportion of each part of a stroke? Hard.
Getting all this correct consistently, stroke after stroke? You guessed it: Hard.


I'm not complaining, understand. I'm just slowly coming to the realization that the obvious thing that I thought would be hard isn't, while a host of invisible things I hadn't given any thought to are really really difficult. (But on the good side: I think I can trick myself into thinking of these invisible things as math, which I can doooo rather than art which I flail at without making any visible progress)

I'm hesitantly coming to the conclusion that the physical motion of the pen -- the smoothness of the lines -- is easy. The angle of the pen is what's hard. This is pretty much the opposite of using a ballpoint pen.

(OH speaking of angles, I am quite happy because one of the things I'm supposed to do now is to practice a stroke where the angle of the pen changes mid-stroke. And I was worried because while fiddlier than anything I'd previously done, I couldn't "feel" the change in angle, and I couldn't see what was changing. I was supposed to end up with half an "m", and I was getting reasonably close, but I just wasn't sure I wasn't doing something wrong, you know?

So I tried the same motion, but this time *not* changing the angle of the pen. This time I ended up with a stroke slashing downward left to right, kind of like the lower leg of a "k" -- so I have convinced myself that I'm probably on the right track with the previous.

There's a term for this in either logic or debugging -- or maybe both. Something about disproving!)

Comments

[pauamma]

Two words: muscle memory.

[afuna]

Yes! And that helps with some of the things, but not some of the more invisible things (does that make sense?)

[pauamma]

I don't know. Maybe it helps once you notice consciously those invisible things? (If/when you do.)

[ninetydegrees]

The angle of the pen is what's hard. This is pretty much the opposite of using a ballpoint pen.

Was there a point in your life where you consistently used a fountain pen? The little calligraphy I did was when I was younger and didn't write with ballpoint pens (that came later and boy were those hard to get used to!) so I'm wondering it that helped because I think what was difficult for me was getting things consistent (height and spacing particularly).

[afuna]

I have never used a fountain pen. I have done some chinese calligraphy (using brushes), but those are different techniques so think they mostly don't help (hmm except for maybe making "kicks" which I do find relatively not painful to get used to).

[mfb]

Are you going to be making more posts about this, or do you have any recommended reading? This reminds me a lot of my developing philosophies on inking (for illustration) but I wasn't aware of calligraphy's practices so I am very very interested.

[afuna]

I'm not aware of any posts, but I haven't tried looking (yet). If I do find any I'll probably link!

I'm planning on posting more entries talking about my learning process, probably once a week or once every two weeks, assuming I run into anything while practicing / class that I want to talk about.

(Hmm I'm curious now about the difference between inking for illustration and calligraphy)

[kerravonsen]

I envy you somewhat, because calligraphy is something I could never do, being left-handed. Fountain pens are designed for right-handed people; a left-handed person has to push the pen rather than pull it, which is completely wrong for fountain pens.

There's a term for this in either logic or debugging -- or maybe both. Something about disproving!

I would call it collecting a data point.

[pauamma]

Counterexample, maybe?

[azurelunatic]

I know just enough about calligraphy to pose a danger to myself and others, so I find your analytic thoughts about the process absolutely fascinating.