Calligraphy Italics: Capital Letter M

Video Transcript

"Capital M. I won't lie. This letter is a challenge. And part of the reason is because we got to create a beautiful harmony from things that are not particularly harmonious. So. These are, this is the structure of the M but I haven't put the slant in yet. So you can see that the first stroke is thin and the second stroke is heavy. So that's the first thing to remember about the M. The second thing is that we want to create a sort of forward movement to this letter. So that means we need to shift everything over a little bit. So I am going to make that first stroke a little more acute. Can you see that? Then I am going to put the second stroke in. The third stroke matching the first and the second stroke. Now, one might argue that there isn't much slant there and you'd be absolutely correct. However, it's usually enough to get by. So, I am going to show you that I am compressing this letter. I am overlapping my strokes as you can see. So, I've overlapped here, I've overlapped here and I've overlapped here. And with any luck, you will get a nice shaped letter. In part, that is going to come from the repetition of the parallel strokes."