Steve Husting's Calligraphy

Psalm 148 artwork

This project began as a homework assignment in which we were to put text in a circle using Copperplate. I drew a couple of circles for the baseline and x-height that would fit neatly on 11 x 14″. I drew them on translucent grid paper of that size. I figured I would make the final piece on 11 x 14″ Bristol board, cut to 11″ square. The x-height circle was 5 1/2″ in diameter.

I wanted the circle motif to make design sense for the words. I chose a psalm from the Bible that included the sun, moon, and stars, all circular things. My first chosen verse was too long to fit on the circle, so I chose another verse that did, from Psalm 148. I drew the outer swashes in pencil, erasing and redrawing until I was pleased with their composition. In some cases, the letters linked; in other cases, I drew free-standing swashes that linked letter swashes on either side. Continue reading →

Final piece, digital print

This project began as a homework assignment in Barbara Close’s workshop at her studio space in Costa Mesa, California. We were to do a piece with Fraktur or Gothic lettering paired with gold gilding. I settled on this text because I wanted a Bible passage in my repertoire that was more familiar to people than many of the obscure texts I have used earlier, as posted in my Etsy store. To make the work more interesting, I decided to add red Latin text between the black Fraktur text, of a style having the same even x-height throughout, and that decision led me to use Half Uncial. I chose that over Uncial to challenge myself to try something I haven’t done before, and because its unusual letters looked interesting, and because I thought it was a better fit with the Latin text. Continue reading →