Uncial Paragraph - Please Critique!

[Inkysloth]

Hi all,

 

I'll be submitting a piece for assessment in the next few weeks. Before I write my final piece, can anyone cast an eye over my draft & let me know what you think of the spacing, letter shapes etc?

 

Thanks all!

 

Uncial, draft 1 by Inkysloth, on Flickr

 

(Missletoe is deliberate - it's spelled that way in the copy of On The Origin of Species I'm using)

Edited March 5, 2015 by Inkysloth

[smk]

This is a nice composition. Since you asked for feedback I will share my observations.

 

One of the characteristics of an Uncial composition is the uniformity of density i.e. if you blur your eyes, the whole block of text appears as one tone. Light and dark areas in writing a text of this size are inevitable but the effort should be to reduce them.

 

Also, the size of the writing seems to change, sometimes within the same word (e.g. humblest).

 

The technique of overlaying letters is used to make lines uniform width. It should be used in lines that need to be squeezed into available space. For example, if you remove your L+E overlaps in line 3, it will become the same width as line 4. Since line 4 is long, you could also overlap the bowls of H+U in 'humble' to make it shorter - ditto for N+G in 'clings'.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Salman

[jasonchickerson]

Well, I'm by no means qualified to "critique" but I'll add my impressions since you asked.

 

The two things that jump out at me are the uniformity of some of the letters, especially the lower case a, which is drawn slightly differently each time it occurs in the text. The a in "feathers of a bird" is the most beautiful. The line height varies some, as well. The second and seventh lines are written quite a bit larger than the others.

 

Overall, the writing is very nice. You have a great hand. To whom are you submitting this?

[Inkysloth]

Hi both,

 

Thanks for taking time to critique, it's much appreciated!

Jason, it's for the Calligraphy & Letter Arts Society certificate: http://www.clas.co.uk/certificate-of-calligraphy.html which I'm sending work into before possibly going in for the diploma next year.

 

Your feedback is really useful, and definitely gives me areas to bear in mind as I do my next practice page - and then hopefully my final piece. Clear points are so much easier to work on, rather than my own "just do it better!" thoughts.

[Uncial]

I much prefer the traditional 'g' like this

...although this is probably more specific to Irish. Other than that, I think it looks really good. Just watch the gaps between the words and aim for a narrow consistency. Having said that I am in no position to comment really as my own uncial hand is a mess!

[ehemem]

I much prefer the traditional 'g' like this

...although this is probably more specific to Irish. Other than that, I think it looks really good. Just watch the gaps between the words and aim for a narrow consistency. Having said that I am in no position to comment really as my own uncial hand is a mess!

 

That G is not uncial. That is half-uncial which is not derived from uncial.

[Uncial]

 

That G is not uncial. That is half-uncial which is not derived from uncial.

Oh, I didn't know they were unrelated. Thank you.