While Vivian going through her archives, She found this Blackletter exemplar penned by Earl Lupfer on the back of a Zanerian diploma. In Lessons 1 and 2 will be on learning his unique Blackletter style. In the early 1900’s, Earl Lupfer was the Engrossing Teacher (calligraphy teacher) at the Zanerian College of Penmanship in Columbus, Ohio. He encouraged his students to learn the exemplar and then work on variations to add variety to their skill sets. The second owner of our studio, Stephen Ziller, attended the Zanerian for 2 years and Lupfer was his primary instructor. Steve kept some of his work from the school – both practice and finished pieces in several lettering styles. In this exemplar, Steve Ziller would always tell Vivian that you need to modify an exemplar to fit the client’s needs. Vivian like Lupfer’s blending of two blackletter styles - Textura and Fraktur. Lupfer’s capitals are very unique with their double stems and left comma, comma, right comma design – to see this design see the examples. Vivian have designed a computer font for this style and use it for mock-ups to clients. Come join Vivian and learn this unique Blackletter style .

 

Lesson 1 – This first of two lessons will cover Lupfer’s style of blending the two lettering styles - including the minuscules and various letter combinations. The lower case is the choir that backs up the soloist – the capital - that forms an harmonious text body thru even spacing between words and letters. 

 

Lesson 2 – In lesson two will concentrate on the majuscules and combining them with the minuscules. Sixteen of the capitals use similar double stems with the left comma, period, right comma design. Once we go through all the capitals, we will modify the capitals – by  making them taller, chunkier, narrower, and etc. 

 

Lesson 3 – Vivian fell in love with these beautiful capitals when she was searching for something different for a framed birth announcement. Vivian found these drawn capitals by Henry W. Troy’s, Trojan Text in the New Spencerian Compendium of Penmanship published in 1881 by Ivison, Blakeman & Company. The client loved them and the framed piece turned out very nice. Vivian have used them for awards when clients want something different from Lombardic and Roman capitals. This class will cover how to draw the capitals with the exact proportions as the originals and then changing the proportions to fit the project. We will finish them with either ink, gouache, watercolors, or markers.

 

Vivian look forward to having you in class to learn that these styles are unique and are not mainstream in the calligraphy world.