Gothic Calligraphy with Instructor Dan Nelson: Letter “C”

Now let's see what we can do with the letter C. If you're doing your letters in alphabetical order, then this is the first of our round letters. The others are G, O, and Q, and they all have the same characteristic in common. We're going to draw a big curve, but unfortunately, it doesn't start at the top. The capital C doesn't start at the top of the capital line. You come down. How far? Man, maybe a pen width, maybe a little bit more than that, and you're going to try to draw a nice perfect arc. Perfect arc. Perfect arc. I'm telling my hand. Perfect arc. There we go. Just like that. Crescent, moon, whatever you want to call that. The next stroke, then, is a vertical stroke that, again, starts a little bit higher than the first one. It doesn't necessarily touch at the top, but again, it doesn't start at the header, at the top line. It starts just a little bit below it. Here's, this is where the Gothic gets in some ways so complicated, because it's like, well, not quite at the top, just a little bit down from it, and that little bit down is something that you're going to develop with time, and you're using your double tool, right? Your double pencil tool. That's a vertical stroke, and then it comes down and connects with the arc down there. It doesn't necessarily, even though mine is messy enough that it is, I'm going to erase that. There we go. That's a little better. I don't like mine to touch up there, like a little bit of air. Now, why didn't I do that last stroke at the top? The reason is I'm going to now go to the top and extend at an angle to the top of the capital C, and then I add one simple curve, simple as opposed to an S curve. Now, there's something very important that I want you to keep your eye on while you're doing the C, like that, and that is that the end of this curve and the end of this curve are supposed to be collinear. They're supposed to be on the same line with each other, and as you can see, mine is not quite, so that means I have to do a couple of things. The easiest thing is to come out here and add just a little bit of a stroke where this arc is coming back up the other way, so I get a little bit of pen width right there. Do you see that? Now, they're lined up. The next stroke is vertical. I'm holding my pen at a number one angle, which is this angle right here, and I make a line just as thin as I possibly can, straight down. One question is, what's the distance between this wide stroke, right, and this thin stroke? And my answer is about one half of a nib width, so it's pretty close. Don't let it get out there too far, or you'll lose the feeling of the gothic ornateness. It'll start looking what I call wobbly. Now, we have two curves here. These curves appear on almost every single letter. One, two, about one nib width in between those two. Do you see that? And make sure you go straight out first and then curve down, straight 90 degree out, 90 degrees from the vertical, out and then down. Got it? That's not a bad, see, I think I could do a little bit better. Let's try it again without so much talking. One arc near the top, straight down, and then at an angle that number three point something, a little past the three. I don't know if it's 3.2, 3.4, whatever, something like that. And then back here, very close to the top, but not quite. Instead, I draw one more curve, and I want to try to make this curve come up to the end of that one. As you can see, a little bit short that time. So actually, I went a little bit long. It'd be better if that this wasn't quite so long. That's part of the reason why you're practicing with the double pencil tool, because at this size, you can actually see those discrepancies, and it will help you get them right. Then holding my pen at a number one angle, and then the curves, whoops, and I missed something on the first one. Did you catch that? This is the first of the letters, A, B, C. This is the first of the letters that has these little ladder marks in them. I'll call them a ladder mark. It's just a little, and again, if you're holding your pen at a number five angle, you want that, or on the corner of your pen, either one, you want that line, that marker there, what I'm calling a ladder mark, to be just as thin as it can possibly be. And for what it's worth, I think that those ladder marks should be roughly at the center of your hook marks. You don't want your hooks here and your ladders down here, or vice versa. Does that make sense? If your hooks are here, there you go. If your hooks are there, you want your ladder mark to be the middle of the hook. So everything is kind of consistent, measured. This is not a sloppy letter face font. This is very, very careful. Now, let's do a capital C with a pen. Again, here's my guideline for the caps. I start with an arc down to the baseline and up close to the top, not quite, straight down, and then kick back this way. Now, a simple curve up to the base, up to the top, then holding my pen, you see I turn it around so it's a perfectly vertical line. Part of the reason I'm doing these so sloppy is so that you can see what it's like to really practice calligraphy. The answer is you make ugly letters on your way, you're making beautiful ones. Let me do another one without so much talking. Two hooks and then these ladder marks in the middle of the hook. Close enough. It's not a bad C. I think I want to bring this out just a little bit more. There we go. That's a pretty good C. Now, let's talk about lowercase. Thankfully, the lowercase letters in Gothic script are a lot simpler than the caps, and we almost always hold our pen at the three and a bit angle. Here's my lowercase guideline. That's my X height, and the C begins at the header, at the top of the X height, comes down at an angle, then a straight vertical angle, and straight up. Then I add this curve at the top. I want to make sure that the end of that line and the end of this line are collinear. They're in line with each other. Let's do that again. Down at an angle, vertical angle, angle, and then a hook here. Got it? I'm going to extend that because that goes a little bit further, so I'm going to bring this up a little bit. One option would be to add a little tiny flag or hook on the bottom of that stroke. That's optional. You can do that if you'd like. Let's do it with a pen now, and here's my guidelines for a nib of this width. I've got a little bit too much ink on it, so let me get rid of some of my excess ink. There we go. And do angle, vertical, angle, angle, and a little curve. There we go. I'm just going to add one more thing to that, and I'm going to add what I call these little tiny hangnails. That is first stroke, and then instead of starting my next stroke right at the end of that, when I come back just a little bit, you see, so that I've got this little hook that is not there. And if you do that, that will make the letters look just a little bit more gothic-ish. Same thing here. I don't start the next stroke right at the end of that when I come in just a little bit, so I have a little hook there. Same thing here. Draw that hook, then come down, draw this hook, and I think I will add the little foot on it. You see the difference between those two C's? This one is just a little bit more ornate, and I think in keeping with the gothic. This is acceptable, but this is maybe the fancy version of a lowercase c. That's a lot of information. Thanks for looking into it.