I’ve been going through a “flat brush” phase lately with my calligraphy practice.
Recently, I’ve been practicing Roman letters with the flat brush.
In the years when I was formally studying calligraphy in the classroom,
I never really took the time to learn the so-called foundational hand,
even though many calligraphy teachers consider it to be the hand students should first learn.
A couple of weeks ago, I found a brush-written exemplar of this important hand.
These letters are sometimes referred to as Roman minuscules,
because of their relationship with Roman majuscules or capitals.
I’m finding that practicing the lowercase form is great practice for the capitals,
especially the brush manipulations required for the serifs and other subtleties of the form.
Working at the larger scale of the brush makes everything a little easier to see,
and since the lowercase foundational hand is a little more forgiving than the capitals,
it makes it easier to deal with the perfection demons that are constantly lurking around Roman capitals.
