The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards [117]
3. When you have finished the alphabets, lowercase and capitals, write your name three times, very slowly, visualizing in your mind’s eye the ideal forms of the letters. Then, turn and look at your writing. I think you will be surprised. Even unable to see what you were writing, and even with the awkward position of Pure Contour Drawing, you will find your handwriting improved immediately, because you were paying close attention to details of the letterforms. Notice how beautifully spaced your letters are, and how you stayed “on the line,” even though you couldn’t see what you were doing.
4. Next, using the technique of Modified Contour Drawing, repeat the exercise above. Place your plastic grid or a sheet of lined paper under your writing paper, to provide a guideline. Place this book where you can see the examples of alphabets. Choose one and copy it letter by letter, drawing very slowly. Then, write your signature again three times, or copy a few sentences from the text.
When you have finished: Compare your last “drawings” with the first. You will have made progress already, simply by paying attention and slowing down.
Using the negative spaces of handwriting
In Japanese as well as in European/American calligraphy, the negative spaces of the letters are as important as the lines we generally think of as constituting the letters. Examine the alphabets, first for enclosed, rounded negative spaces: a, b, d, g , o, p, q.
1. Practice these rounded negative spaces. Try not to think that you are drawing the letter o, for example. Think—decide!—that you are drawing the space inside and that it is a beautiful shape, embraced by the line with its precise closure. Write your signature again, paying special attention to any closed, rounded negative shapes.
2. Next search the lowercase alphabets for closed, elongated negative shapes, some above the line, some below: b, f, g , j, k, l, q, y, z. Draw these letters now, again focusing on the negative shapes. Try to make all the closed, elongated negative shapes the same in size and in shape. Write your signature again, paying special attention to closed, elongated negative shapes.
3. Continue with each of the main shapes of spaces—for example, the negative shape of n, m, h, v, w, y. These letters have mounded negative spaces. Draw a series of m’s and n’s, really concentrating on the negative mounds. Make each negative mound the same—same size, same shape.
4. Try the open negative space of the letters c, k, v, w, and z. Check the margin model for the exact shape of these spaces.
Fill in your loops to check their consistency of size.
Each letter needs its own negative space.
Decide on a slant, then use sighting to keep the slant consistent.
5. Try the pointed negative space of the letters i, j, t. Make sure that you place the dot over the i so that it precisely lines up with the tip of the letter.
6. Try the negative shapes of the “odd” letters s, r, x. Note that each letter can be visualized in negative space in two ways: a. The interior negative spaces: the spaces inside the letters. b. The exterior negative spaces: the spaces outside the letters.
For exterior negative spaces, imagine a format drawn around each letter. For the “short” lowercase letters, the basic format is a square. For letters with ascenders (“tall” letters), imagine a rectangle two boxes high, resting on the line. For letters with descenders (g, y, etc.), the two-box rectangle drops half of the rectangle below the line.
The key point about the exterior negative spaces is that each letter needs its space (its format). Notice how the slanted letter fits inside the format. To practice exterior negative spaces, obtain a sheet of graph paper for ready-made formats.
Sighting a beautiful hand
In art, the word relationships expresses a constant theme. As you have learned, art is relationship—parts brought into beautiful relationships