From start to finish this freehand digital sketch took me approximately 44 minutes to produce.

The hours to refine the calligraphy was done over the foregoing days, with iron gall ink and carbon pencil practice upon A3/notepad paper respectively.

After historical handwriting research focusing upon ‘a’, ‘4’, ‘L’, ‘Y’ paper studies and freehand practice I had a good idea of the scrolling style I wished to create.

The best way to offer insight into my work is by providing actual photographs of my ink work practice:

The ‘y’ was quite difficult as calligraphy goes.  Scrolling ‘y’ letters were already highly represented in handwritten texts I studied.  I wanted something with my style – simplifying and complicating my design as necessary to ensure it exemplifies Art.

The adjacent line similar to a ‘j’ [immediately above] is my practice at finding the downward stroke for the ‘y’.  With all the characters for this work I filled quite a few scrap paper sheets.

This ‘a’ I produced, photograph shown immediately above, is just about as perfect as I made throughout tens of illustrations with same.  My digitally sketched ‘a’ has provided complimentary movement to the other characters.  A sense of quirkiness.

There is a feeling of jazz music, bass playing and dancing in the above digital work, in my own opinion.

What did you think viewing this piece?

The looped ‘L’ on the down stroke really excited me.  At that instance of artistic experiment I knew the L was, shall I modestly seek to say, successful.

The question was, ‘how much scrolliness is required?’

Digital sketching software enables us to add or remove lines and re-try without starting a whole new piece of paper.  Even my digital sketch with the mouse, top photograph, needed tens of practice letters and number 4’s on the computer screen.

I re-tried between twenty to thirty times for this digital artwork.  After the ‘a’ and ‘L’ had been digitally sketched I kept working at the ‘Y’ for the quality in this piece I wanted.  The number ‘4’ is my own version of 17th Century numerical handwriting.

Joyful working satisfaction through practice.