1000 Words

So, first, I guess I should explain what Typography really is. It is the study of how we came to have an alphabet, and the history of letters and characters. It’s interesting that I’m taking it now, as I was fascinated by a page in the encyclopedia when I was little. A page that showed Egyptian hieroglyphics. Well, it turns out that hieroglyphics were one of the first forms of written communication. I find that so amazing. I used to stare at the page for hours at a time, trying to decipher what each picture said. I don’t think I ever did. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t live in Egyptian times, since I love reading!

Our first project was to create an illuminated letter. When books started to be written by hand, a lot of them contained a large, decorative first letter, which often related to the story. This was called an illuminated letter. Some of them were really fancy and elegant. When I went to Italy in 1984, I picked up a postcard that had some gorgeous handwriting with an illuminated letter. I had no idea what it was, I just thought it was pretty. I remember seeing a lot of illuminated letters on various documents we saw in various museums. Oh, sorry, sidetracked a bit. So, the assignment was to pick a 6 word story from a website that the instructor provided and create an illuminated letter that represents the story.

I chose this story: “Rained, rained, rained, and never stopped.” by Howard Waldrop (no clue who he is, might be nice to look him up!)

Here is my illuminated letter.

I painted it! It is acrylics, on a stretched 11 x 14 canvas. I used irridescent and matte medium. I am so in love with it! My goal was to make the R look like it was almost flooded with water. I think I accomplished that. I used the irridescent medium to make the water have some depth. This is among my first paintings, so it probably could have been way better, but I’m thrilled with it! I’m actually thinking of adding a simple frame and hanging it somewhere in the house, since it IS an R (like Radecki, get it?)

-Have a wonderful day!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Graphic Design class. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.