Basic Calligraphy Strokes

Video Transcript

"But, before that what I want to show you is that in every writing system there has to be a basic or minimum stroke, or minim stroke as we say. That stroke in the Roman alphabet is the capital I, which also happens to be the word I; very unique and very important. So, here we go. What I'm going to use to demonstrate is a brush, a broad edge or flat brush, because it's easier to do for demonstration. So, what we end up with is a tapered stroke. Let me do that again. Down on the left and then coming down on the right. So, what we end up with, I'm just adding little tiny serifs here, what we end up with is a stroke that has a kind of, it has a bone structure to it. It's actually, you can think of it in terms of being three lines. There is a center line or spine idea. Then because we have twisted and turned this stroke there's a bit of a concave on this side, on the left and then there's a bit of a concave on this side. So, what you wind up with is what I would call a living form, a living letter. It has a sense of organisity to it. It has, it's almost like a human bone. Here are things that we are going to call negative spaces and we'll get back to that in a bit."