From the course: Learning Calligraphy

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The broad-edged pen and how it works: the ribbon effect

The broad-edged pen and how it works: the ribbon effect

From the course: Learning Calligraphy

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The broad-edged pen and how it works: the ribbon effect

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- This may be the first time you've written with a broad-edged tool, instead of a pointed tool like a ballpoint pen, or a pencil. The broad-edged pen is very versatile. In this course, we're learning the Renaissance style called italic. But the very same tool, the broad-edged pen, is used for many other styles that you might want to try after you finish this course. Here are just a few. Blackletter, Batarde, Uncial, Humanist, Rustic, Carolingian, and Roman capitals, as well as many variations on the italic style you'll be learning in this course. You can achieve so much visual variety with this one simple tool. To give you a skeletal picture of how the broad-edge works, I rubber-banded two pencils together. Each pencil point represents a corner of the broad edge. As I write, you can see how the two pencils cross over one another at the thin points. With that mechanism in mind, now the moment you've been waiting for. Let's get started with the broad-edged pen. The pen holder should…

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