Gothic Calligraphy with Instructor Dan Nelson: Letter "W"

Let's do the letter W. Now if it helps you any, think of it more as, if you're German, a double V because it's actually more like the letter V that we just did doubled instead of a W. I don't know if that will help you any. Starts out with a simple S curve at the top, like so many of our letters, and then continues in a very traditional manner, a vertical coming down the normal length there, and the second one right beside it. Now the third stroke is a little bit unique. It's a long curve, not as long or deep as the V, but it starts at the baseline, lining up here, see at the end, starts at the baseline and ends at the baseline. Let's go ahead and do that angle right now. Now back to the top of the letter angle. Let's make this a curve and then a vertical straight down till it intersects with that angle. Let's do another curve. So we have two, essentially two identical curves in a row up here at the top. And down here, this is a straight, elongated diamond. And then we do just as we did with the letter V, we do a long S curve right here. There we go. So it's a duple V or a double V, if you will, much more than it is a double U. And we do our vertical strokes, two of them, just as with the letter M and our hooks here and our ladder marks, even with the middle of the hooks. Got it? That's the duple V, double V. Let's do it again. S curve, vertical, second vertical, long curve, angle, curve, straight. Let's do this angle now. Elongated, elongated diamond. Another curve. And then all we have to do is do this S curve to connect top to bottom. And that's it. If we do our verticals and our hooks, I'm hurrying here because there's so many lines, but they're all simple, but they're very traditional. That is, I'm assuming this is not your first letter. Okay. You'll know all of those marks already. That's the order that you do them in. Let's do it now with a pen and I'll slow down just a little bit and try to do it right. Here's my markings for an instrument of the size speedball C1. An S curve, a vertical going down to about one third or one fourth up from the bottom, from the baseline. Second, same length. And then a long curve. This is the only part that's really unique to the V is that mark right there. Then up at an angle. Back to the top, we do one curve and a vertical. Let's do this elongated diamond here. And then another curve, just like the first one. And then a long S curve to connect top to bottom. When we add the verticals in here, we will be all set. Keeping your pen in the number one vertical position to do these hooks and the ladder marks. That's a W. Good enough. I think you've got it. Let's move on to the lowercase W, picking up our pencil tool again. It's again, much more like a double V than a double U. So if that helps you to remember that, that's good. We start out with a curved stroke up here at the top. Instead of a straight diamond, let's start with a curve, just like we did with the letter V. And then go down to nearly the baseline. And then we do another, just as we did with a lowercase V, we do another curve down here. Got it? And then angle. Now we're into some ordinary diamond shapes. Diamond there. Vertical. Elongated diamond. Back up to the top. Another diamond. Straight down. And then that elongated diamond with a little bit of a hook on it. That's all there is to it. Let's do that. Now let's do that with a pen. I think you're ready to go on to that. It's very simple. There aren't many unusual marks, especially if you've already done the V. This is a pretty, all the marks in this letter we've seen before. A vertical and a curve. Diamond. Get that angle in there. Elongated diamond. Another diamond. Vertical. Let's get that diagonal in there. Elongated diamond and a little bit of a hook. Let me do that one more time. This crescent shape. Vertical. Longer curve. Diagonal. Diamond. Vertical. Elongated diamond. Angle. Diamond. Vertical. Elongated diamond with a little bit of a barb on it. That's W. And as you can see, when you do these diamonds, the little barbs that I talk about that sometimes you add to some of the letters, you don't need to add them because they're already here on all of these diamond shapes. Got it? That's the W. And we're coming down the whole stretch. I'm glad you're watching.