Gothic Calligraphy with Instructor Dan Nelson: Letter "Y"

Let's do Y. Why? Because we like you. There we go. Mickey Mouse Club. S curve at the top. It's actually very much like the letter U. So if you have the letter U down, you've nearly got the Y down. The second stroke is this truncated or shortened arc. Not quite what we have with an O, where it's a full circle. This one is squeezed a little bit, so it's shorter than that. Then back to the top, we do an angle, and straight down, and then an angle to connect with the rest of the arc. Let me extend this a little bit. There we go. Then an elongated diamond here at the top. You can put a little barb on that if you want to. And then a vertical. But unlike the U, now we're going beneath the baseline, and then be ready to curve back up the other way. And most of the time, of course, you really can't push a calligraphy pen uphill. So you have to start, pick up again, and draw another stroke coming back this way. Every once in a while, you can get away with doing that. It depends on the exact pen and paper that you're drawing on. Okay, and we've got a vertical, holding my pen in the number one position, number one angle, vertical that goes there, and my two barbs go right here, and our two ladder marks right there. Got it? Let's do that again. Let me move my page a little bit so I have a clean spot right here. S-curve, a truncated arch, if you will. Diagonal, vertical, diagonal, elongated diamond, vertical below the baseline. There we go. And then this finishing curve right there. Holding my pen in the number one position, both for that vertical and for these hooks, and our little ladder marks even with the hooks. Got it? That's the letter Y. Let's do it with a pen now. S-curve, nice arc, nice curve there. Diagonal, vertical, diagonal, elongated diamond, vertical below the baseline, curve, and then finish the curve down here. Now, do you see that this arc doesn't come far enough? That's an easy fix. You just come back and extend it, and nobody will know the difference. Well, except for you people who are watching, of course. And we do a vertical, our two hooks right here, and our ladder marks even with the hooks. Got it? Let me do that one more time. I think I've got enough ink in my pen to do one more letter Y. Let's do it right here. S-curve, nice loop here, back to the top, angle, straight down, angle, elongated diamond, vertical, starting the curve, and finishing the curve. Yeah, I'm running out of ink now. Maybe I can get through. Well, let me do this again. If I'd practiced this enough times, I would probably then think to extend that arc the first time around, so I wouldn't have to make the addition. That's exactly what practice is for. Then I do the little hook, two hooks, and two ladder marks, and that's a mighty pretty Y. Now, I'll try to refrain from any more corny puns on the word Y. Let's do our lowercase. Let me get a clean piece of paper. Let's do our lowercase Y, and if you've already done your lowercase V, then your lowercase Y is just about ready to go. We're going to start out by doing this little horn shape. I think that's the first time I've called it a horn shape. My terminology will be stabilized here in a while. Then this upside down curve and an angle. Back up here, a simple diamond and a vertical going beneath the baseline, and then a diagonal and a simple curve going that way. Got it? That's a nice Y. Let's do that again. I called this a horn, didn't I? Like a horn of plenty, like a hunting horn, whatever shape you want to call that as long as you're making that shape. I find it helpful to turn shapes into words because then I start employing the left side of my brain. If I don't give it a name, it's harder to remember. It doesn't really matter what the name is just as long as you give it some kind of name. Now, here's something I'll point out just to, again, help. Do you see that this shape and this shape are virtually parallel to each other? They are exactly the same shape, just one is lower than the other. Little things like that help you get your gothic letters structured just right. I've said before, I'll say it again, that there's a wide variety in the way gothic letters are done. Don't start getting creative until you really have at least one form of the letter, not only under your fingers, but in your mind so that you know what a good gothic letter looks like. Let's do the letter with a pen. I think I'm going to start taking photographs of people who've made signs and they've tried to do calligraphy of one kind or another, but they don't really know calligraphy and so they do funny things in their signs. I'll let that, we might add that to our website later. Funny calligraphy mistakes that you see in public. Let me do this letter Y again. Horn shape, vertical. So don't get creative too quickly. Make sure you've got the basic structure down is my point before you start getting creative. Diamond shape, vertical, another curve, diagonal. There we go. And if I may, if you add just a little bit to that edge, then you've got the little barbs on that letter that make it just a little bit more fancy gothic. You're doing great. I'm doing great. You bet. We're a good team. Let's keep going.