Gothic Calligraphy with Instructor Dan Nelson: Letter "Q"

The letter Q. If you're doing this in alphabetical order, then we just finished P. So I would make some kind of joke about minding your P's and Q's. Does anybody know where that comes from? Somebody should Google that. What does minding your P's and Q's come from? Or is it only old people like me that know that phrase? Who knows? Okay, starts just like the letter O, and then not at the top. You see there's a gap there. And then also not quite at the top, a vertical stroke. Then I come down and connect to the inside of that arc. Second stroke, that is the second arc, third stroke actually, is essentially the same as the letter O. Come around here and hook up to the first one. There we go. Now something little funny happens here. I would be tempted to do a vertical stroke next, but whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not. Because this is the one time where something a little odd happens to the vertical stroke. And if we put in the hook of our Q, I don't know what this is called, it goes below the baseline. So this would be one of our very small descenders on a capital. There's that hook on the Q. Now the vertical line comes down and stops at that. I don't want it going through here. That gets cluttered looking and very non-Gothic looking. So we do not want that stroke. Got it? So do this curve first and then do the vertical line. Then we do our two hooks. We do them very neatly and carefully. And then we do our ladders, our ladder marks. Got it? Let's do that again. Arc number one, vertical stroke, just like the letter O and the letter C and the letter G. And we finish this just like the letter O. Second stroke. There we go. Now the third one, the one, two, third, fourth stroke that I want to do is this curve right here coming below the baseline and up. I don't want to go out too far out this way unless, perhaps, no, it would never be. Unless you're writing the word Iraq and why would you use a capital Q at the end? Never mind, just ignore that thought. And then a vertical stroke here, holding your pen in the number one position, right? And a hook here. I'm laughing at the messiness of my letter, but you're going to get it. I just want to make sure that you use your pencil. Don't just watch me do it. You use it because it's one of the best tools you have for learning how to do calligraphy. Now to the caps with a pen. Here's my guidelines. First arc, just a perfect crescent if you can. Second stroke, a vertical, an angle back in, connecting to the inside of that arc. And my third stroke, finally up to the top of the guideline, coming down like this. Now the hook of the Q, there we go. Then switching my pen to the vertical position, the number one angle, keeping at that angle for these two hooks, one, two, and then my ladder marks. Good enough? Let's do that one more time. You do it with me. Arc, vertical, angle, angle, arc. Almost did it, didn't I? Let's do this curve next. There we go. Then we do the vertical. Then our two hooks. I'm doing these very quickly, partly so that you can just see how practice happens. When it came down to doing a project, I'd be careful. I'd be tracing these. I'd be doing all kinds of things to make sure they were all perfect. We'll talk about that when we talk about doing a project. Now let's do the lowercase Q. Here's my X height guideline, which means a Q of course has a descender, but it starts out very much like the letter O. Straight angle, straight vertical, straight elongated diamond. Then up here, we could do a diamond, but I'm going to do this curved diamond or mirror image of an apostrophe, and then a vertical that goes below the baseline, leaving enough room. Don't go all the way to one third. Leave enough room for an elongated diamond down here with just a little toe on it. Got it? Finish that stroke, and there we go. Let me go straight ahead to the pen then. Here's my guidelines for this tool. Make sure my pen is releasing just the right amount of ink. Angle, leave a little bit of a hook there. Vertical, draw a little bit of a hook there. Diamond, and up. Hook, vertical, going below the baseline, leaving enough room for an elongated diamond down here with a little hook. Let me do that again, okay? Angle, vertical, little hook off to the left, just a tiny one, so that we get that little barb on the letter that helps it look all the more gothic-like, and a little curve there. Vertical, straight down. Stop just a little short of about half again if this is your X height, then you're in gothic. Your descender should come about that far down from your baseline. Got it? So that's what I mean. Stop just a little short of that, so you have room for an elongated diamond, and then just that little tiny hook there, and that looks very much like a gothic cube. I bet you're having fun, aren't you? You're doing a great job. Let's keep going.