Gothic Calligraphy with Instructor Dan Nelson: Letter "M"

So the letter M gets us right to the middle of the alphabet. M for middle, that's convenient, isn't it? It starts out very much like many of the other letters with an S-curve way up here at the top. You stop when the end of the S-curve hits the top line, lift up your pen and do the first vertical, straight down. If some of this sounds redundant, if you've done many of the other letters, there's a good reason for that. In fact, in calligraphy, in any font whatsoever, the goal, the objective is to let every letter have great similarity to all the other letters. Okay, back to the second S-curve down here. So we want as much uniformity as we can get throughout the alphabet. Now, back to the top for the second vertical, connecting with this S-curve, there we go. The next stroke, I want to make sure that there's an easy mistake to make and that is that you don't go down far enough. So we're going, I'm going to show you in a minute why we have to go down perhaps further than you would normally think. Make sure my pen's at the right angle. The reason is, let me finish this stroke and then I'll show you the reason, and then a diamond, or an elongated diamond, either one. I'm going to do an elongated diamond down here. The reason is that this next stroke needs to come right off that corner. Do you see that corner? And it needs to end at the top line. So you can't, if you're, if you stop up here, you're going to be in trouble. You won't have time, you won't have space to get this stroke in and still have it stop at the top guideline. I'll draw that again in a minute so you can see it. And then the second stroke is exactly, the third stroke I should say, it is exactly like this second one. Elongated diamond, vertical, elongated diamond here at the bottom with a little kick up, just that little foot there. Then we do, in this case, two verticals, holding my pen in the number one position, adding a diamond right here at the end of this vertical, and then my two, what I call hooks over here, and then my two ladder, four ladder marks, even with the middle of the hook. Does that make sense? One there, and one there, one there, and one there. Let me draw that again without quite so much talking. S-curve, vertical, stop there, second S-curve, second vertical, connecting, come down far enough, a little bit farther than I might, first inclination maybe, vertical, long diamond, toe, hook out there, second angle, there we go, that worked out just right, and again. So these last two verticals are essentially identical to each other, which is very convenient. Now, my first vertical stroke and my second. The second vertical stroke, by the way, should intersect with this diamond here, it intersects. So we don't do two diamond shapes, that's called a diamond right there, we don't do two of them. Did you notice that? There's just one. And then a hook here, hook here, and the ladder mark there, there, there, and there. Got it? Let's look at that with a pen. And if you're doing these letters, and I'm assuming, not assuming necessarily that all of you are doing it in alphabetical order, but I would guess most of you are. If you're doing it in alphabetical order, then many of these rules are becoming second nature to you by now. But some people are just entering in this letter, so I need to explain just a few things for those who may be getting started with the letter M. Or perhaps this is just their third or fourth letter. So we do an S curve at the top. I'm going to do that again because my ink is flowing a little too heavy. There we go, that's better. And a vertical, hook out, second S curve, second vertical, coming down a little bit further than I would normally feel like I should. An elongated diamond down here at the bottom, with a little hook on the end. Back to the top, and then my third vertical is essentially identical to the second. Elongated diamond, a foot here. If that's a foot, then that's a toe, right? And holding my pen in a number one angle, which is vertical, straight up. We do two verticals in the letter M, add a diamond here, got it? And then two hooks. Generally speaking, we want the two hooks to be centered vertically. And what I call ladder marks, those marks may have some historical traditional label name for them. If they do, sorry, I don't know what it is, but maybe we'll start a new trend. Now they're called ladder marks. Again, let's do that again, because the M is a fairly complex letter. S curve, vertical, straight down, another S curve, second vertical, straight down, connect with that one, angle, vertical, angle, foot, toe, angle, angle, vertical, foot, toe, vertical stroke, vertical stroke, going fast here, trying to keep you going, hook, hook, ladder mark, ladder mark. There we go. Okay. That's a capital M. Have fun practicing that one. And when you get that one, then you'll find out you've got the letter N very much under control as well. Now let's talk about the lowercase M. And here is my, for the pencil, here's my X height, which of course the letter M fits right within that. And the lowercase letters, of course, are much simpler in Gothic script. It's the capitals that get all the glory. The lowercase letters do pretty much all the work and the capitals are the show-off part. So the lowercase are almost always, you hold your pen at the, if you remember, or if this is early, just a little past the number three angle, one, two, three, four, five, in between three and four. Try to keep your pen at the same angle throughout the entire process. The good news is that the, now wait, this last, this last stroke, here we go. I'm talking, not thinking. Let's make this one up here a hook instead of just a straight diamond, just to add a little bit of variety there, make that a hook. And then this comes down and perhaps make this last diamond, this is a diamond and a diamond. Let's make the long one an elongated diamond or a foot like I was doing up here so that we have room for that little toe. Got that? Now let me think about what I'm doing and do it again this time. So a simple diamond here at the top, vertical, simple diamond at the bottom. Again, simple diamond at the top, vertical, simple diamond at the bottom. Now here's where I want to make a change. Instead of a simple diamond, I'm doing like a, an apostrophe laid over on its back, a curve. Why? Because it gives us this little, this little hook out here, which to me looks gothic-ish. That's just the best way to put it. And then vertical and make this last diamond. You could do, you could leave it just like that, but I think it calls for elongated diamond with that little toe. Got it? Let's do it with a pen and you'll see those details coming together. So here's my X height guidelines for lowercase with a speedball pen, speedball number C1 diamond, vertical, diamond, angle, diamond, vertical, diamond, angle, hook, or curve, apostrophe, whatever you want to call that, vertical, and then an elongated diamond with just a little bit of a toe on it. Got it? And that's a lowercase m. I think you've seen me enough times. That's probably good enough. You need to practice. So do I. Let's keep going.