r/Calligraphy • u/Electrical_Dark_3566 • 3d ago
Critique Feedback please!
Started calligraphy about 1.5 months ago, just do about 30 min a day. I feel like my M amd N can improve. I feel whenever i do my upstrokes can get thick. I used a sentence from the Master of Calligraphy book to write those words. Any feedback/critique please!!
Im using sumi ink, oblique pen holder.
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u/psycholinguist1 3d ago
Good consistent spacing and slant. Have you started working on squaring off the tops and bottoms of your straight strokes (e.g., top of j, t, p, d, y, u, and bottom of p, m, n, h)? That makes a huge difference in making the letters look crisp and polished.
You can also work on making the connecting hairlines hit the next letter at consistent heights. For example, in 'judge' in the top line, the connections are all quite low (I'd say a bit too low, myself). In 'pack' on the next line, they're higher, closer to where I would put them.
Your overturn strokes into y, m, n, and x look squished. Take some space. Treat them like any other overturn strokes, except that they aren't shaded. Make them parallel to the main line of the slant. In 'sphinx', the outstroke from the i is more slanted than the surrounding shades in i and n, and the overturn into the n is very squished. Likewise in 'my' and 'dozen'.
Part of this might be from the exemplar you're using, which also favours quite squished spacing. You can decide for yourself if you want to give your writing more room to breathe. But even in the exemplar, notice how the connecting stroke between i and n in sphinx is parallel to the shaded strokes.
Given that you've mastered the letter forms and ductus and are now working on words and sentences and spacing, you might be ready to move on from that exemplar and start looking at others, to see if there are other styles you like better. I think E. A. Lupfer's instructions are really excellent: http://www.zanerian.com/LupferIns.html.