Calligraphy has been in the news lately thanks to Stephanie von Werthern-Gill writing 11,500 words of exquisite copperplate for the King’s coronation roll. I feel a faint coming on at the very thought of being asked to do such a thing! She must have nerves of steel. She wrote all those words without making one single spelling mistake!! I am in awe.

By comparison, here is a recent practice sheet of mine where I was recalling, from my poor memory, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116….

What the hell are impendiments????? And what is a Zeba??? And why, in the middle of trying to recall a Shakespearian sonnet did I suddenly feel the need to write Zebra – for that is what I believe I wanted to write – ?????
Let me not be too harsh on myself as this was most definitely a practice sheet where I was actually testing the nib/ink/paper combination – hence why I switched to black ink towards the bottom of the paper. [Hunt22B, Gouache, then Higgins Eternal, on Crown paper, for those who want to know]

Normal practice on a Rhodia pad looks like this:-

Normal practice, for me, is just about rhythm and flow, and making sure I can still hold a pen. Please note, my numerals are always a bit hit and miss – mostly miss.
Anyhow, I have now set myself a challenge to see how many words of calligraphy I can write without making an appalling spellinges mistake – my current record is 67.

There may well be another calligraphy post on Friday. Who knows. Maybe there will be more about impendiments and Zebas. Excituing!!