If you adore hummingbirds, add those in! Delighted by your tiger barb fish? Have them swim through your S! She gives you tons of examples and plenty of "base letters" to start with. But this launching pad is to help you then design your OWN letters. She has grid paper for you to practice and explore. She also has all sorts of examples of green-man-style faces, geometric shapes, swirls, horses, you name it.Īgain, though, the aim isn't for you to just trace and copy her examples. Maybe the butterflies from the E latch on to the snail from J. Maybe you take some leaves from her letter A example and tuck in a flourish from the P. The aim is to INSPIRE you to now try your own combinations which speak to you. Here's the letter L.īut the aim isn't to have you simply trace her design and duplicate it over and over again, although of course you could do that if you wanted. She provides you with beautiful examples to get you started. She talks about how you can do the painting with watercolor or gouache, with colored pencil or marker. So, yes, Jane starts with a background of what illuminating letters was about. We add our own personal touches to our letters. The way you choose to draw yours would be vastly different than how I draw mine. A key to illuminated letters is that every one is unique. Illuminated letters are fantastic for creating bookmarks, t-shirts, journal covers, you name it. This book here is about inspiring you to draw your very own beautiful initial illuminated letters. It's so much easier to watch a video which lets you see the hand in motion, how the pen is held, and so on. Trying to learn the motion of calligraphy from a two-dimensional book page is quite challenging. Much of calligraphy is about the position of the hand and the way the ink moves across the paper. If you want to learn calligraphy you should really watch a video rather than look at a book. So the first thing to note about Jane Sullivan's book is that it does NOT TEACH YOU BASIC CALLIGRAPHY. See how that first letter draws your eye and gets you to start reading? Here's an example from this book, the Illuminated Letters Sketchbook by Jane Sullivan. Illuminated letters got their start way back in the 500s and were often used by monks and scribes to add interest to their documents. Rather, it means "brought to life" with colors and paint. The word "illuminated" here doesn't mean "lit up" like a light bulb. This type of letter is called an illuminated, or painted, letter. While the "reading" text done in calligraphy is usually fairly straightforward and monochromatic, there is sometimes an initial capital letter which has extra flourishes. It is stunningly beautiful, primarily done with black ink, and creates each letter in an elegant, even style. Most of us have seen examples of Western-style calligraphy. Illuminated Letters Sketchbook - Jane Sullivan
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