Tag Archives: NLLA Workshop

Ruling Pen Alphabets

Letters, , , ,

Last week I took part in an NLLA workshop on Ruling Pen Alphabets run by Penny Price. We explored the possibilities of using a ruling pen to create different shapes that could be used to form letters. Penny lead us through a series of exercises to build up guidelines of form that can be used to create original alphabets. Before the advent of technical pens, ruling pens were used to draw rules (lines) in technical drawings of all kinds. By using the side of the nib, much broader strokes can be drawn.

Penny explaining different shaped curves
Penny explaining different shaped curves
Penny’s examples
Penny’s examples
Jon's Ruling Pen experiments.
Jon’s Ruling Pen experiments.
Fun with Bs.
Fun with Bs.

Adolf Bernd workshop

Letters, , , ,

Very interesting workshop with Lin Kerr at the North London Lettering Association. More to do with colour exercises than calligraphy. Adolf spent over 15 years of his retirement painting large initial letters (400 x 600 mm) using an unusual palette of colours. We recreated this range of colours by mixing complimentary colours together. We used the resulting tertiary and other colours in the middle, furthest from the two original colours. These were used to paint small letters (30 x 50 mm) in the style (sort of) of Adolf Bernd.

Colour chart mixture for Yellow and Violet.
Colour chart mixture for Yellow and Violet.
Final finished small letters.
Final finished small letters.