Class Notes · September 26, A.S. 37 (2002)

SCA Calligraphy 101

✦ ✦ ✦

These tips and guidelines are based purely on personal experience and should not be considered a complete discussion of the subject. This information is intended to get beginning scribes started quickly. As experience grows, the scribe will naturally start to experiment and try other methods, materials, and techniques.

References

Much of this information can be found in the Outlands Scribe Handbook. Every scribe should get a copy of this handbook, or print out the electronic copy at rialto.org/handbook/scribesdraft.pdf.

The best source book for learning historical calligraphy is Medieval Calligraphy, Its History and Technique, by Marc Drogin. This book is the "bible" of SCA calligraphy and should be obtained by each student. It's inexpensive and readily available.

Supplies

For SCA calligraphy, use quality archival materials. You don't want your beautiful scrolls fading over time — for most scrolls, this is more important than worrying about "what is period." Suggested shopping list:

Paper — heavy, smooth, archival (acid-free) paper. Bristol is a good starting choice. Also keep a supply of normal white copy paper for scratch.
Pen holder for the metal nibs. The Speedball holder works well.
Metal nibs — Mitchell is a good choice. Get a variety of sizes from 3 to 6, with an ink reservoir for each. Avoid Speedball nibs.
Ink — a permanent archival ink. Black Calli is a good choice. Avoid dye-based inks (found in most cartridge pens) — they will fade.
Pencil — mechanical with HB or F soft lead, or a regular #2 pencil, sharpened.
Ruler — metal with a good edge and anti-slip base.
Ames lettering guide, for drawing the guide-lines on the paper.
Eraser — a white eraser for removing pencil lines.
X-acto knife, for scraping ink to remove mistakes.
Magnifying glass or head band to avoid eye strain with small lettering.

Getting Started

For your first lesson, use a piece of graph paper and a calligraphy marker. Once you get the hang of using a calligraphy pen, move on to the metal nib pens you'll use for actual scrolls.

Consult the attached samples of Carolingian (a rounded hand) and Gothic (a straight-line hand) from Drogin. Some people find the rounded letters of Carolingian easier; others find the squared straight-lines of Gothic easier. We'll start with Carolingian.

Carolingian practice

Keep the paper straight.
Rotate your hand so your pen is at a 45° angle relative to the paper.
Draw a series of vertical strokes (like the letter 'l') across the first line of graph paper using your calligraphy marker.
Concentrate on making the strokes vertical (follow the guidelines on the graph paper) while keeping the pen at a 45° angle.
Try spacing the vertical strokes as evenly as possible.
On the next line, continue with vertical strokes, but now add the "serifs" at the top and bottom of the 'l'. Don't worry about fancy multi-stroke serifs — just add a little bend at the top and bottom of the letter.
On the next line, draw a series of o's. Draw the bottom-left stroke first, swinging the pen from the 10-o'clock position counter-clockwise down to the 4-o'clock position. Draw the upper-right stroke next, swinging from 10 o'clock clockwise to 4 o'clock.
Concentrate on making the letter 'o' circular — a thin line at the 10 and 4 o'clock positions, and a fat line at the 8 and 2 o'clock positions.
Finally, try a row of t's. Start with a horizontal stroke; to accent the start and end you can make a slight curve, like a ~ character. Below the horizontal stroke, add the lower-left stroke of the 'o' from the previous line.
After you are comfortable drawing l's, o's, and t's, continue practising other letters from the Drogin example.

Gothic practice

If you found drawing the l's easier than drawing the o's in the previous practice session, you might find the Gothic hand easier.

Start with another row of vertical strokes (l's). Focus on making each stroke vertical while holding your hand at a 45° angle.
Concentrate on the spacing between the vertical strokes — in Gothic, even spacing is even more important.
On the next line, draw the first stroke of the 'm' or 'n' character. Start by pulling the pen towards you at 45°, then end in a vertical stroke.
Link a few of these strokes together to form the letter 'n' or 'm'. Focus on the spacing between the vertical strokes.
On the next line, try drawing 'o' letters. Following Drogin: a thin 45° line to the lower-left, then a vertical line, then a 45° line to the lower-right. Complete the 'o' by pulling the pen towards you at 45°, then a vertical stroke, then a thin stroke to the lower-left.
Each 'o' is more like a hexagon — six straight sides. Practice another row.
All other letters are variations on the same strokes. Practice a few of your choice from the example.

Using a Metal Nib Pen

Now that you are comfortable holding a pen at 45° and forming letters, try a metal-nib pen. Calligraphy markers are good for quick practice to help your hand learn the strokes — but for a real scroll, you'll want something that looks nicer.

Some people are intimidated by nib pens and start with cartridge pens instead, only to end up frustrated. The problem with cartridge pens is that the ink is often dye-based, so it fades with sunlight. Dye-based ink is also often less black than pigmented ink and looks worse than calligraphy markers. You can fill an empty cartridge with pigmented ink like Calli, but the ink is thicker and you'll be constantly fighting the pen. Easier to learn the metal nib from the start. Once you get it, you'll never want a cartridge pen again.

I prefer Mitchell nibs because the reservoirs are removable for easy cleaning, and they hold the ink below the nib. This helps the ink flow more slowly because of the angle. Hold your pen vertically and gravity pulls ink straight down — too fast. Hold it more horizontally and gravity can't pull the ink as easily, so it flows slowly. A sloped writing surface encourages a shallow pen angle so ink flows slowly.

Learning to dip the pen is the first trick. There's no need to carefully fill the nib with a brush or eyedropper as some books suggest. Simply dip the metal nib into the ink jar — that's what they did in period. Dip so about half the nib goes into the ink — don't get ink on the holder. As you remove the pen, brush the two sides of the nib against the inside edge of the ink bottle to remove excess. You can also brush the top side (without the reservoir). Avoid brushing the side with the reservoir or you might bump it out of position.

After dipping, do a few test strokes on scratch paper — the first few strokes will be heavier than you want for the scroll. If the ink stops flowing between letters, use scratch paper to get it flowing again, or turn the pen upside down and drag it. Sometimes you'll just need to re-dip. With practice, you'll write more than a line before refilling.

Layout of a Scroll

Graph paper is great for practice, but doesn't make a very attractive scroll. On archival paper, use a pencil, ruler, and lettering guide to quickly draw evenly spaced guidelines. Once the ink is completely dry, erase the guidelines. Guidelines were used in period, and many times they were not erased.

Before drawing letter guidelines, draw the margins on the page. Leave enough margin around your letters for both the illuminated border and the empty border around that. Typically the outside empty border is at least one inch on the left and right, with 1½ inches on top and 2 inches on the bottom. Depending on the illumination design, leave another one or two inches all the way around. On 11×17″ paper this often leaves about 6 inches of width for the calligraphy.

An Ames lettering guide is useful for drawing many parallel lines quickly. The spacing between lines is set by the size of your metal nib and the calligraphy hand: Carolingian wants a letter height of 3 to 5 pen widths, Gothic wants 4 to 5. Draw a few horizontal strokes with your nib, then turn the circular ring in the lettering guide until the spacing between its holes matches that height. Place the guide against your ruler, place your pencil in a hole, and drag it across the paper. Move the pencil to the next hole, drag back. Repeat for evenly spaced lines.

Practice makes perfect

Your calligraphy will improve with practice. One way to practice is to do the calligraphy for a scroll twice. Yes, twice — this is supposed to be fun! Practising the actual text of the scroll on scratch paper first, with the proper nib and line spacing, lets you determine how many lines are required, where to start the text, and where line breaks should fall.

To help avoid spelling errors or skipped words, I often print the scroll text — with the actual name of the Crown, recipient, dates, etc. — in a large font on the computer. A large, easy-to-read copy next to your work surface helps avoid mistakes. If your practice paper turns out clean, you can even use it directly as your guide.

Don't worry too much about mistakes. Many are easy to correct with a sharp knife to scrape dried ink. If you leave out a letter, you can often just write it above the word. Mistakes are period — real manuscripts show many creative corrections, including one that used a crane-like pulley as part of the illuminated border to hoist a letter into place. Even so, be sure to spell the name of the Crown and the recipient correctly.

Conclusion

Calligraphy takes patience and concentration. Many people are so used to writing quickly with modern handwriting that they get frustrated slowly drawing each letter. Others find the process easy and mechanical. Take it one step at a time, practice, and stay focused on each letter, and you'll achieve wonderful results. Don't be afraid to ask for help, and don't be afraid of mistakes.

The best illumination still looks horrible with sloppy calligraphy — so quality calligraphy is the centerpiece of any good scroll. It can take long hours, but seeing the recipient's face light up in court is well worth the time and effort.