George Edwards – LAT Journeyman
Over the course of 6 weeks, I will be a journeyman to Richard Kindersley and Phil Surey through the Lettering Arts Trust Journeyman Scheme.
I have begun my journey at the studio of Lettering artist Richard Kindersley in South London. Richard’s studio is full of previous exhibition works, sample carvings and other pieces that have been designed and made by him and his many past apprentices. Slabs of carved stone, large scale sheet metal and concrete letterforms are displayed on the walls and resting on surfaces providing constant inspiration.
My first task with Richard was to draw a Roman alphabet after a discussion about the development and purpose of imperial Roman lettering and lettering today. Once we had been through the alphabet on paper, I then drew the alphabet again, directly onto a piece of Portland stone to carve.
Drawing directly on to the stone is a good lesson in not being too precious with your drawing, as you often have to rub out letters and move them in order to get the spacing to work. This is all good practice and helps consolidate what has been learnt on paper.
Along side the alphabet stone, I have been working on a small job for Richard. A tablet with latin text; ‘FIRMITAS UTILITAS VENUSTAS’. These are the three attributes of classical architecture according to Vitruvius from the 1st Century BCE.
The client asked for the stone to look like a fragment with the lettering to be in the same imperial style that I was practising with my alphabet.
Rather than drawing directly on to the stone, Richard typed it out using his own font developed for a previous project that was of a similar style, and so helpful for getting an idea of spacing. Some letter proportions needed to be manipulated and others spaced more generously in order to stack the words and have them all equal in length. Once this was printed to scale we started to draw the new letters and use the print out as a rough guide for the sizing and spacing. Some of the fine tweaking on the spacing was done by photocopying and then cutting and pasting using a light box, and then photo copying again to achieve a single sheet.
Phil Surey’s studio
After a period at Richards studio, I moved on to spend time learning brush lettering with Phil Surey at his workshop in New Cross. Phils’s carving studio, like Richards, is also full of impressive stone sculptures and text based artworks he has made or is currently making, hung on the walls and resting on shelves with an upstairs drawing and painting studio for work that must remain dust free.
Using gouache paint, natural lining paper and flat brushes, Phil and I started working through Roman capital letters. Phil taught me to paint letters in the same way a Roman Ordinator would have done, using one pass with the flat headed brush to make each element of a letter. There are certain movements and manipulations of the brush that are crucial to achieving the correct shapes. Many of these techniques are set out in Father Catich’s ‘Origin of the Serif’, however having Phil present to demonstrate and explain why these methods exist and work made all the difference to my understanding and ability to persevere.
After many days practicing and having a go at lower case letters using the same method, Phil thought it would be good to use the roman alphabet I drew and carved with Richard as a guide for a painted alphabet. Using charcoal on the back of a printout, I transferred my alphabet onto lining paper and began to attempt to recreate my drawn alphabet with the brush. I moved on to adopting more of a sign writers approach, building up each stroke of a letter using multiple passes with the brush. This way of creating a finished letter is still very difficult but is sometimes helpful for having a second chance to improve a shape or stroke.
One reason for wanting to learn brush lettering was to have it as an option for setting out inscriptions for carving, something that Phil often does on plaques and memorials, especially on less absorbent stones. As part of my learning, I assisted in carving a memorial. The lettering had been painted in a clay paint and carving it felt very different to following traced lines, which can often lose the movement and elegance that was in the original drawing. The letters were more energetic, gestural and expressive than a traced letter, each one having its own unique character. I enjoyed carving the letters set out using this more natural and historical approach.
My time spent learning about the two different working practices of Richard and Phil was invaluable. There has been a noticeable difference in the quality of my work as well as my drive to continue learning and improving as a result of the expert knowledge that was passed on to me through this scheme.
georgeedwardsjourneyman.wordpress.com 