neuland lesson 6

hopefully you are getting comfortable with the letters built from straight strokes. you've started some subtle curves with the J and S. now, you can work on the ( ) strokes and make OCD. the first O, on the top line, is a little droopy. the C is OK and the D is fine. the O number 1 is very sad because rather than have a nice fat beginning and ending, it has the pitiful crescent shapes. same pitiful thing happening with 2 and 3. and then poor number 4. the beginning and end is flat and fat, but the droopy midpoint is enough to poison any work of art or envelope. watch those midpoints. it was OK to have the weight of the E and F dropped, but you may not do it on the D (or the B or R, but those come later)

i will never forget peter thornton describing how unfortunate it is when the weight in italics is too low. he described the look of a droopy small, italic *a* as looking like a full diaper. that is a mental picture that is easy to remember and kept me from ever making full diaper italics.

my visual for the droopy neuland is a saggy bosom. yuck. so, lets keep the midpoint of any curve at the center or if you can't hit the center, make sure it is a little bit high. if anyone has a sample of beautiful Neuland with saggy middles, please send me a copy. maybe it cam be done....but until someone can show me a sample, i'm going to be emphatic about placing the widest point of any curved stroke at or above the center of the letter.

the second detail to note is no. 5. as you start down at an angle, you are pulling rather straight and then you make most of the curve in the middle third and then you head rather straight towards the baseline as you make the bottom third of the stroke.

6 and 7 show how you can do the variation where you start at an angle and end at an angle.

happy lettering