Welcome to Chapter II – Minuscules
The intensity of this next chapter of calligraphy, I thought I was prepared for it but not even close. I'm learning now how to write the alphabet in lowercase this month. I'm using all the foundational strokes I learned last month in "Show Me Your Drills" (Intro to Calligraphy 101. It's pretty intense, a bit overwhelming, yet I'm looking forward to it.
I cheated a bit and watched the first video (which was the letters A-G) and seen that my instructor, Becca used two different colored brush tip pens. One was pink and the other was light blue. They're Zeba Funwari brush pens. She said using the pens is helpful in remembering to think of this as individual strokes as opposed to one letter. The pens are helpful for her to show us and to teach.
I purchased a set of seven Zebra Funwari pens for $9.99 a few days ahead of class from Amazon. You can also buy them directly from their website @ Zebra Funwari. This is for information purpose only, if anyone is interested in buying these pens.
Let’s get to the lesson breakdowns:
Week 1: Letters A-G
Week 2: Letters H-N
Week 3: Letters O-U
Week 4: Letters V-Z
We learn one letter a day. Today was the letter "a". It takes three individual strokes to make the letter "a" (upstroke, oval and underturn stroke). Per my instructor, Becca when writing the letter "a" don't think of it as the letter "a". Instead, think of it as I'm writing three individual strokes to create the letter "a".
I have a lot of mixed emotions right now. Happy to have made it through "Show Me Your Drills". I was feeling good about going into Minuscules until I started. I feel like in some ways, I have gone back to square one. Learning something new but it's familiar because I have a good foundation on the basic strokes but these new strokes, I'm slightly intimidated by, but I know I will learn them. This helps bring my anxiety down a bit.
I know it's only the first day, but my instructor Becca put this course together so well. Her explanations really compliment the Minuscules workbook that I feel ready and after writing the letter "a", I feel much better.
*Blogger’s Note: I’ve uploaded the “Welcome to Minuscules Video on You Tube. You can watch it here.