Gothic Calligraphy with Instructor Dan Nelson: Letter “N”

Let's tackle the letter N. Using your double pencil tool, you've got that right. You're not, this is not for you to watch me, this is for you to do with me. Exactly, you get better at calligraphy by practicing, not by watching this video. S curve at the top, just as in most of our letters. Stopping when we get back to the top there. Second stroke, straight down. Stop about one third from the bottom, maybe a little closer, hard to say. And then our second stroke is another S curve, very much like the one at the top, making sure it lines up here. Just like that, S curve. Do not start going back up this way, that would be a mistake. Just let it stop at the skinny part right there, okay? Second stroke, that is second vertical stroke. Close to the first one, straight down, and then it intersects that S curve, got it? So we have this, what I call a cartoon smile shape here. You got it? You've seen that before, perhaps if you've done some of the other letters already. Now, back up to the top, we do very much like we did with the letter M. Wanna make sure that this comes down far enough so that we have some space, some air in here, got it? So don't make this too short, let it come down far enough, and then a vertical Y. Let me finish this stroke. Then we have a elongated diamond or a foot shape. If that's a foot, then that's a toe. If this is a toe, then that's a hangnail. Let's keep these things straight, shall we? Okay, back to a vertical stroke, using my pen in the number one position. And the reason we want air in here is because we need to make room for that vertical stroke. Got it? Then we do the two hooks, one, two, and the two ladder marks. Now, that's, it's a mess. If somebody walked in right now, I'd say, what are you doing? Let's do another one that's a lot cleaner than that, right? S-curve, vertical stroke, hook off to the left. Second S-curve, lining up with the first one. Second vertical stroke, about half a nib width away from the first one, finishing when I intersect that bottom S-curve. Now this, I'm coming up above the guideline here just a little bit, because I didn't leave myself quite enough room. That's legal. You may do that too. Coming down perhaps just a little bit further than I think I should so that I've got enough space in here. The last vertical stroke, stopping when you get, oh, about that close, maybe a little closer to the bottom so you have room for an elongated diamond down here at the bottom. Got it? And then that little tiny serif hook, hangnail, whatever you want to call it. Got it? Please tell me which terminology you like the best and I'll try to go with your wishes. There's a vertical stroke and a diamond and our two hooks that essentially line up, vertically line up in the middle of the letter. And then our two ladder marks that line up with the middle of our hooks. And that's a capital N. Let's go ahead and do it with a pen. I often have a piece of paper up here, any kind of paper, any scrap paper will do to make sure my pen is releasing just the right amount of ink. S-curve, pick up, vertical stroke, one third from the bottom, hook over. Second S-curve, lines up with the first, second vertical stroke. Pull this down just a little further than you may otherwise be inclined to do so you have room. And likewise, an elongated diamond or foot and toe down there at the bottom. Now, holding my pen in the number one position that is vertical, making this line just as thin as your drawing utensil will allow you to do and a diamond at the bottom. And then these two hooks here on the side and two letter marks. There's great variety. I'm sure you've discovered this already. If you've looked at online for Gothic or Old English or Fracture or Blackletter, German text, whatever you wanna call it. If you've looked for images, you've seen that there's a wide variety in all of these letters. And I've designed an alphabet that can be accomplished, I think, by a beginner without a lot of advanced pen manipulation. And yet it looks very Gothic-ish, very authentically Gothic. Like some of the letters you'll see only have one hook off here to the left and I chose to do two. Why? Because I'm the one doing the video. Because I think the two hooks looks just a little bit more Gothic-ish. That's just the best way to put it. Okay, now let's talk about the lowercase N. Fairly simple. Back to my pencil tool. Here are my guidelines right here for the pencil tool. And it's quite simple. Elongated diamond here at the top. Straight down. Regular diamond down here. And then an angle. And I'm going to do this the way I did if you've done the M with me. If you haven't, then let me make sure you understand this. Instead of going straight a diamond here, I'm going to do a little bit of a hook. Sort of like an apostrophe laying over on its back. And then coming straight down and doing a slightly elongated diamond down here so that I have room for that little toe. Do that again. Diamond. Vertical. Diamond. Apostrophe. Vertical. Long diamond toe. Got it? Now let's do that with a pen. Making sure it's behaving just the way I want it. Here are my guidelines for the X height for this tool, for a pen. Diamond. Vertical. Diamond. Angle. Apostrophe laying on its back. Vertical. And slightly elongated diamond down here with a little toe. There. That's a very nice gothic N. And if you're doing these in alphabetical order, we've just passed the meridian. We are more than halfway through the alphabet. Doing a great job.