Drawing an alphabet – M
Initial idea: brush-inspired mid-century
I was imagining the title lettering of a 1963 Woman’s Realm article about Petula Clark’s new kitchen.1
I drew the ‘M’ with a brush to see how it worked but recreated it digitally because I am not very good at brush lettering. Although it’s based on brush lettering it’s not trying to look like brush lettering (see b for that sort of thing).
Tidiness
I had a problem with this that I’d also had with some other letters: I couldn’t decide how tidy and consistent it needed to be.
A brush-drawn letter will be inconsistent (unless you’re very good at it) because of all the variations of movement that happen between shoulder and tip of brush, and the behaviour of bristle, ink and paper. A stylised digital version could be drawn ‘perfectly’ – inconsistencies of line thickness, taper, curve etc. could all be corrected. But perfect could also mean characterless.
The ideal would be both flawless and full of character. My attempt probably misses out on both but I’ve been staring at it for so long I can no longer tell.
This is part of a project to draw the letters of the alphabet in different styles.