nanke's stuff

I recently signed up for an on-line class taught by Nicolette Anderson.  The class was organized through Artists of the Round Table, an on-line art group I belong to.  I've wanted to learn how to do calligraphy for many years, but the problem is, I'm left-handed.  I know, I know ..... some of the best calligraphers are lefties.  But - here's the thing.  Every book I've either bought or just picked up and read pertaining to left-handed calligraphy says pretty much the same thing.  You have to put your paper in a really odd position (some even said upside down!), in order to keep from dragging your hand over the letters as you make them.  I'm not a leftie who does that keep-your-hand-above-your-writing thing by crabbing your hand all around.  (My sister, Maryanne, did that, and it always looked so painful to me). 

So, when this class came up, I decided I'd give it a go.  Here's what I decided:  I would learn how to do it with my right hand!  It just seems to me that if I want to do it at all, it's going to take some major brain work getting accustomed to working in a whole new way.   So, since that was going to be the case, why not just learn how to do it with my right hand?  Of course, this may just be one of those hairpin ideas you get in the middle of the night, but what the heck - if it works I'm ecstatic, if not, well, I will probably have plucked out all my hair in frustration, but then think of all the money I'll save on haircuts ..... enough to buy some more of those calligraphy for lefties books!

The first assignment was to print a standard basic alphabet, then do 4 more that we modified in some way.  There's a couple of mistakes that I just crossed out (I had already done them several times and didn't want to start them all over again), but all in all, for my first right-handed try, I feel pretty OK with them.  So, here they are: