Week 5: In which I take quill to parchment

Quite a while ago, my brother got me this gorgeous calligraphy set as a gift. It has since held a place of honor on display in my living room, but I've been too much of a wuss to actually give it a go. For one, I don't know calligraphy. For another, I'm left-handed, and as any lefty will tell you, any writing implement involving ink is Not To Be Trifled With.

I bet all that ink would look fantastic splashed all over my hands...
said no left-handed person ever.

But I really, really wanted to use the pretty quill and the pretty ink, so I decided that this week was the week. I took it as a good sign that the first YouTube video I found when I was hunting for general tips on how to use the quill featured a left-handed guy. I watched him a couple times, and then went to hunt down some calligraphy tutorials, even happier when I found one for a school that was made by a lefty (odds are only the other left-handed kids shown the tutorial even noticed, but believe me, they did).

Time to get this ink-stained show on the road!

After I'd seen all there was to see, I Googled around for some alphabet templates and gave it a go. It was suspiciously like being in Kindergarten again, trying to write your letters. Sadly, it looked exactly like that, too...

It's funny 'cause it's true.

Eventually, I settled on some templates from here, and decided to just pick an alphabet and go for it. Below is my final attempt at the Unical font, in all its beginner glory:

Hey, at least you can read the letters.

And then I figured, why not, I'll write my name (in Italic font on top, and Unical font on the bottom):

That's my name, don't wear it out.

I honestly tried one of the fancier fonts...for about five seconds. When I stopped laughing, I gave up. Some fonts are not meant for mere mortals such as myself, with one day of self-taught calligraphy under their belts. It is definitely an art form, and the pen/brush/pencil/etc.-to-paper arts have never been a thing I'm any good at. I am definitely intrigued, however, and since I have the basic tools I'm sort of hoping I'll come across the opportunity to take a formal class at some point.

As soon as I get all this ink off my hands.