Rustic Capitals - workshop with Jilly Hazeldine

Our December meeting seems to have come around fast this year! We were lucky to have Jilly come and visit us to take a workshop on Rustic Capitals.

Now I have to admit I wasn't too keen on learning this historical Roman scrip. But a couple of our members wanted to explore it further so Jilly came and did an excellent workshop with us - and yes, converted me into appreciating the script more!

There aren't many example of this script around which is probably why it's not that familiar, and unlike most hands, it requires a lot of pen manipulation - pen angles range from 45 degrees up to 80 degrees depending on which letter you're writing, and as you bring the nib down on a vertical stroke you twist the pen slightly to get a thicker 'flared' line towards the bottom serif.

 It's not for the faint hearted, and even Jilly warned us at the start of the day this would be hard!

As usual the whole group really threw themselves into the workshop session and I think we surprised ourselves at the end results. I haven't taken many photos this time but the below hopefully gives a flavour of the script.

We were also able to welcome Clare, a new member who joined us last month from the Kendal area. as a beginner to calligraphy Jilly was able to spend the day getting her used to Foundational Hand and the basics of letterform construction.