Script Analysis - U to Ampersand

Finished! And thank all the Gods that ever existed for that. I thought that I was truly going to go insane.

Script Analysis - P to T

Not related, but I really like the comment that Sheila Waters recently made in a Cyberscribes mail :

" Johnston insisted that his students ( and Irene Wellington was one of
his best) set up a cover sheet and write at the same "sweet spot"
level, moving the paper up line by line instead of moving one's head
(see the diagram in chapter one of my book)."

Script Analysis - P to R

I like the P's.
I don't like the Q's.

Script Analysis - G to O

I'm getting more into the 'character' of the script as I work through the alphabet.

Because I've only done 'standard' gothic textura quadrata before, it's quite a departure doing all these curved lines and points.

I had finished this page, but noticed the m's and n's weren't quite right - not enough of the connecting lines showing, so I went back and re-did them. I'm pretty happy with the result.

Script Analysis - A to H

I'm quite pleased with how the letters are looking.

And, having written them out so many times already, I'm getting a handle on the letter forms.


No, I can't paste in the little bits of paper, with the individual letters on them, straight to save my life.

Script Analysis - Ductus, A to F

Script Analysis - The Ductus : A and B

This table shows everything I know about the letters A and B.

A revisit to all the information and to the source script hasn't hurt - I've made a couple of little corrections (like my Bs were too wide before).


I've tried the "everything heavy" method from Drogin, and it's looking good.

I tried using coloured watercolour ink to draw the letters and it's very time consuming, waiting for one colour to dry. I didn't feel that it added enough information to be worth it. I can make notes on any particular strokes that I need to.

Script Analysis - Letters S to Z graphed, and pointiness

The y and the z were tricky buggers.

Looking at the original script (the page of script that I particularily like, from Codices Illustres), the ascenders are STILL more pointy at their bases than the ones I'm doing - even with them tilted up from the left to the right, and angled at about 60 degrees.



Drogin shows how to add on an extra bit of point on page 140. I'll have a go at doing this and see how they turn out.


What a lot of malarky to form a single letter! No wonder gothic scripts eventually died out from use!

Next is to graph the letters again, using watercolour ink so that the separate strokes can be seen, and adding in stroke numbering and directions to form a ductus.

I'm going to do it in a layout similiar to the one Harris uses in his book. It'll be a lot easier this time around, because I have the basic letter shapes down (I hope).

I'm also going to add in all of the hairlines and little flourishy bits.

Script Analysis - Letters M to R graphed

Script Analysis - Draft Ductus : A to L

I've swopped to using graph paper with a 3 mm (double the Bedford Psalter pen width) square size and it's SO much better and clearer.
I'm using a speedball that is a little bit smaller than 3mm, but close enough.


Apart from some comments on the first version of the A, I'm not putting in stroke directions yet. I need to get more familiar with the more unusual letters and teach myself to build them in Drogin's way, not the easiest way for me (which is putting the vertical lines down first). I'll get there.

The ascenders/descenders shown aren't correct. I'm still practising doing the dip at the top/bottom (well, I'm still practising doing the curve at the top then changing the pen angle to do the diamond at the bottom, never mind the next step - the complete dip at the top). Also, the ascenders are thickened in the B.P. - a bit thicker near the top/bottom (it's be part of constructing the dip, following the left hand line down or up a bit). So letters like the L are not very accurate at the moment.

I also need to make the letters more Bedford Psalter in character. It's got to do with the angularity, and the curvature of the diamonds. At the moment, they are a bit too 'straight'.

Script Analysis - Draft Ductus for the A

Ok - back to the script analysis of the Bedford Psalter.

The last entry on it was Script Analysis - The Ductus on Graph Paper III
where I'd drawn (key word - drawn) each of the letters (in ballpoint) on graph paper.

The next step is to write each of the letters in a broad pen.

This is me attempting the "a". Struggling to get the proportions right.


I'm very glad that I got acquainted with each of the letters in the earlier exercise. This is hard!
I eventually got it - but had a problem with the ink bleeding.

I made notes on the construction of the a on the graph paper. When I've done them all, I'll put the complete ductus together, complete with arrows. I'm using the ductus from Drogin's book as a starting point.

I've printed out some more graph paper on paper that hopefully won't bleed (it's worse because I'm moving slowly with the pen) and will do some more on this version of the 'a'.

I may move to using bigger squares than those of the actual p.w. of 1.5 mm. It's hard seeing the detail working this small.

OK ... just pulled up the graph paper above in Blogger. It's unreadable. I'll be re-doing the notes anyway - but writing them on the graph paper is a bad idea. I'll have to blank them out with white out or something before writing the notes.

Script Analysis - The Ductus on Graph Paper III

I say 'ductus' but it isn't, of course. Ductii have stroke direction markup. This is - um, an exemplar?

I've finished mapping out the letters on graph paper.

There are also a few updates to the pages with notes on the ascender/descender heights, and stroke angles.


I learnt heaps about the construction of the letters by doing this. Definitely a useful exercise.

The next thing to do is use a broad nib pen on the graph paper.

I talked about the decisions I was making about the letter forms in
http://elmsleyrose.blogspot.com/2007/01/script-analysis-ductus-on-graph-paper_30.html

It would be interesting to make decisions other than I have made (eg fairly straight quadrants) and see the difference in the set of letters I come up with. Although, right now - if I don't make some progress towards finishing the script analysis and actually practising the script itself I think that I'll go mad.

I do have an illumination project due at the end of next month and I want to get started on it - hopefully have it ready to present somewhere near the appropriate date, unlike Kit's gift, which was months late.

Script Analysis - The Ductus on Graph Paper II

I'm gradually proceeding.

It's actually quite hard to do this.

I'm learning a lot about the letters as I go along.

For instance

• the F and long S are composed of an L, with a quadrant attached to the top (and here I thought it was a 45 degree slope - it's not - it's the rounded shape of the top of the L joining to the side of the quadrant)

• the S is actually 8 mm tall! (not 7 mm the x-height of all the other letters. I've checked on all the pages I've got. It's just that little bit taller!

• I really can't do Half R's.

Choices on Variants of basic letter shapes

I'm having to make some choices as I go along to provide some sort of standardisation.

• The quadrant shapes are either straight or slightly bowed. I'm going with the slightly bowed shape (I went back and adjusted some of the quadrants on the earlier letters I'd done - more white out!~)

a straight (ish) quadrant (right hand side, top)









a bowed, or curved, quadrant

• I've noticed that the descender of the P is slightly pulled to the left in some cases. I'm going with a straight descender.

and are both examples of pulling to the left.

The pulling on the example on the right is more due to the thickening of the vertical. I'll dissect the anatomy of the thickened verticals in a later post.

• The shape of the ascender varies - either a split ascender or a split ascender with a horizontal line going across it's base. I like the second option

Split ascender








split, but more horizontal serif on the ascender.

• The descenders do the same thing - they have more or less splitting. That can be seen in the images of the two Ps above. It's really only the descenders of the Ps and Qs that this applies to - they are the only ones that finish in a non-diamond or non-flourished vertical descender.

• I realised that the long S has the 'drip' that fills the vacant space to it's right

(shown here with a wobble on it's drip). Therefore it wouldn't also need the curved serif that I was talking about in a recent post that the script seems to have to fill the vacant space on other letters (ie
I wonder if the F should have a drip as well, instead of a serif like the one shown above. I'm a bit low on examples of F's.

Script Analysis - the Ductus on Graph Paper

I should mention here that white-out is my friend. Even after drawing them in pencil first and then using pen, I'm finding problems and need to correct them.

So I'm using graph paper printed with squares equal to the nib width (using that Free Graph Paper calculator programme), referring to

• my sheets that show the angles of all the letters
  
• the one that shows the measurements of where the various ascenders and descenders end
• the reproduction of a page from the Bedford Psalter (the one from Janet Backhouse's book)
  

I've found a few details that I need to add to the sheet showing the angles of the letters. Things like the angle of the pen where it finishes at the end of the ascenders of the D's.

I'm up to O. Wha-hee!

What I want to do next is repeat the exercise, using a broad nib pen rather than pencil and biro. That leads to more natural shapes in the letters.

I'm also practising the shape of the ascender.

And I've finished putting the images back into the post about the angles of the letters. Took me ages. I really really hope they don't disappear again!

Script Analysis - Angles of the Letters

From my list of script analysis questions

"Measuring the angles of the strokes

Extend the angles of the entry and exit strokes of each of the letters, most importantly the O, to the nearest part of the baseline or waistline. You can mark the extensions of the strokes on tracing paper placed over the ductus rather than marking up the ductus itself. ³

Measure the angle of each line using a protractor or Katarina Helene's Analysing Guide which has the advantage of the lines coming right up to the edge

below

Look for any steepened or flattened angles, and any changes of angle designed to counteract inconsistencies of weight in the letter’s construction. ³

Make notes of any of these cases on the ductus

below

What is the dominant (most common) angle? ?^3,4
This is pen angle of the script. Make a note on the ductus

Well, everyone knows that for Gothic Textura Quadrata. It's 45 degrees. What was a lot more interesting was where the strokes weren't at 45 degrees. Some were sneakily flattened. There's all sorts of stuff going on.

What are any variations of the pen angle, and in which letters? (for example a Z often has strokes with the pen at an angle of zero or 10 degrees)?²
Make a note of any of these cases on the ductus, including a note of the different angle

below
-----------------

It wasn't easy to measure the angles of the letters. They varied a lot for the same letter.

The problem is illustrated by this piece showing varying angles from some Bedford Psalter script, from The Historical Source Book for Scribes (page 91)

I measured several examples of each letter, and used my general knowledge of the gothic textura quadrata script, and some common sense, to arrive at some answers.

The following extracts were relevant to my thinking :

from Harris, The Art of Calligraphy, page 52

and

Drogin, Medieval Calligraphy - It's History and Technique, page 141.

The relevant part starts half way down the first column, starting "It aided the design .." and continues to the end of the first paragraph of the second column.

Letters with only 90 degree angles

• I,
  
• version 1 of J (which looks like an I),
  
• L
  

Letters with angles of 45 degrees only

The letters containing only 45 degree angles (other than vertical strokes) are :

I found it surprising that more letters didn't contain only 45 degree angles, but between the flattened angle of joining strokes that Harris mentions, and the flattened angles for letters that don't finish with a diamond, all the others have a mixture of angles.

I found, in fact, it was only when a stroke emitted from a diamond that the angle was at 45 degrees.

I'll talk about the note against some letters saying "slightly larger diamonds" another time.

Letters with flattened angles that don't finish in a diamond

According to Drogin, the angle of the bottom diagonal of the letters B, C, D, E, F, O, R, T, V, W, should be flattened (as explained in the excerpt above) with the possible except of C and E where the problem can be gotten around by shortening the upper stroke.

I found this to be partly true with the Bedford Psalter letters. I believe that the need to flatten the bottom diagonal is obviated in some cases by the use of the hooked serif. That serif fills the empty space - in the same way Drogin mentions a trailing line extending from the final stroke of the R in some G.T.Q. ductii.

Drogin doesn't say which of the bottom strokes should be flattened, (left or right or both) and I've got a mixture of left or right stroke flattening.

The C and E in this case didn't have flattened bottom strokes, nor shorter top strokes - they do have the serifs, instead.

The letters that I did find to have flattened bottom diagonals were :

The angles marked on the Ds are pretty hard to read. The ascender of version 2 (the first one, version d1 is in the pure 45 degree angle section) is at 30 degrees, the bottom left stroke at 20 degrees and the right bottom stroke at 45 degrees.

On version 3, the ascender is at 37 degrees (midway between version 1 and version 3).
The angle on the left bottom stroke has been cut off. It should be marked as "30 or 35 degrees" (I just couldn't decide which, after measuring lots of them. I'll work it out when I start using a pen to write them). The right bottom stroke is at 45 degrees.

Ooops, the angle marked for the left hand stroke of the V is cut off as well (so much for my Photoshop editing). It's 45 degrees. (And the pasting of pictures in Blogger is a bit of a nightmare)

The drawing of the slightly curved stroke that at the left of the bottom of the W is pretty bad.

That leaves C, version 1 of D, E, F, R and T out of Drogin's list that don't have flattened bottom strokes. But they all have serifs to make up for that empty space.

Flattened angles of connecting strokes

Harris talks about flattened strokes used as connecting strokes. This is relevant here for H, G, and Q

Other Flattened Strokes

Letters that

• do finish in a diamond, but
  
• contain flattened strokes as well,
  
• which aren't connecting strokes
  

- are shown below.

- this isn't a very well drawn Half R

- Long S

- this is the ampersand

Letters that have angles greater than 45 degrees

Miscellaneous Letters

P has a 45 degree angle as a connecting stroke, and the zero degree angled stroke at the base

There is the same sort of situation with the T, except the 45 degree angle is the edge of the top of the letter formed with the crossbar, and it has a zero degree strokeas the crossbar

It's just the serif that sits at 45 degrees, otherwise it's a simple vertical. But getting the serifs at the right angle is important too, and the J version 2 has nothing else to put it in any other category,

The Hooked Serif

All of the letters than end in a vertical (with a diamond at the bottom) have a hooked serif to finish.

For example :

This serif extends from the bottom of the diamond at an angle of approximately 30 degrees (and then straightens out to the vertical).

This serif finishes just over half way up the height of the letter

I think I've got ahead of myself again, and answered a couple script analysis questions early. I will write out the whole document, all in order, when I've finished doing the analysis.

I've also not answered the script analysis questions directly - just shown the work. I'll write it out properly when I write out the whole document.

I became more familiar with the letters as I did this measuring and looking back at the original script, and realized that my reproductions (photocopies gone over with a pen) are pretty inaccurate.

I have two big pieces of information about each letter - the height of the ascender/descenders and the angles of the strokes, that's going to make for a very crowded ductus if I marked each letter up. I realized that it was a good idea to draw the letters on graph paper, where each square was the size of the nib width (working with 1.5 mm nib width), working with the information I've measured but referring back to the original script for examples of the letters. I'm choosing a 'nice' looking example of each letter, since they do vary a bit, even on the same page.

It's quite hard and slow to do - trying to get them right. The curved strokes at the top are just terrible. I'll do better when I'm working with a broad edged pen rather than pencil and biro.

It's a bit circular - trying to draw accurate representations so I can learn to write each letter, when I haven't learnt to draw the letter yet. I can't see myself doing a really good ductus until I've spent some time practising the script itself.