Calligraphy Italics: Capital Letter N

Video Transcript

"Capital N presents us with a problem. Let's say we look at the N and we know that the N is comprise of strokes like this. Three. That looks pretty good. When we make the first stroke though, the temptation is going to be to make a stroke like this because we are holding the pen at a 40 degrees or 35. We are pulling a straight stroke down. Many of our other letters start with this stroke. So if I am making an F, it's going to look like this. However, with the N, we have the problem that that first stroke has to be different than the second stroke. Why? Because that's the way letters are shaped. So, I have to make a skinner first stroke for the N and a skinny second stroke. Now if I don't do that, I am going to end up with an N that looks like this. Which isn't a terrible letter. But if we compare it to some of the other letters on the page, we are going to see that this N is lacking some of the finesse or the delicate strokes of the hair lines. And there is a trick to getting those hair lines. And I'll show you that next."