Neuland and Tutoring

I belong to a small calligraphy group that meets on the second Saturday of the month for its committee meeting and then in the afternoon for calligraphy for three hours, from 1pm to 4pm. Now these three hours may be calligraphy, like it was this month, or like last month, it can be a Japanese card. For August the committee had decided to ask myself to tutor Neuland. Now while I love using Neuland it was the first time I had actually tutored it, so to say I was a little apprehensive was putting it lightly.

I've tutored before, Uncial twice, once as an eight week lettering course and once as a six week lettering course. Add to that Modern Uncial as a six week lettering course and as an afternoon workshop and I think I have my nerves under control but it seems that tutoring a new script really threw me.

With only three hours to play with and a vast range of calligraphy experience in the room, the lesson plan and ideas needed a rethink on how to present. I decided on creating an exemplar that could be used as strictly an exemplar for the more experience calligraphers or a copy sheet for the beginners. Having requested that all bring along tracing paper to trace their letters this would ultimately speed up the learning process and lead them onto the creative part of the afternoon (thank you to wonderfully experienced tutor for this idea, and she was acknowledged in class).

To get everyone in the mood and to get pens, inks and arms/hands flowing, I asked everyone to practice creating a row of lines at 90 degrees, a row at 0 degrees and a row at +- 30 degrees angles. This I told the class would loosen them up but to also create the pen angles for creating the letters. While they practiced their pens angles I read them a brief history of Rudolph Koch.

After an hour of writing, it was time for a coffee, a brief break and look at what examples I had brought in before proceeding to part two of the afternoon. Using their letters.

Now as most of us know from experience, both as students and tutors that we or the class want to get onto using the letters, and in a three hour class it is no different. So while having explained that for the beginners they would still need a lot of practice to perfect their letter form, to start to get a feel for it, they could trace their letters onto tracing paper and then transfer them to a piece of good paper and they could experiment with using colour. I had suggested that they bring in coloured pencils or metallic pencils if they had them and some black paper for a different look. Most people did and the results speak for themselves.

Once the class was under way and I was able to walk around and offer one on one tutoring the adrenalin eased off and I too, was able to enjoy the afternoon. I now have another lesson plan up my sleeve if ever needed.

Enjoy the results of the Calligraphy Southscribes, afternnoon with Neuland.

Class

Kath's

Colleen's

Kay's

Mirelle's

Gloria's

Glenis'