flourishing the acanthus leaf by heather held how to use ... · the acanthus leaf has been an art...

VOL. XIX No. 3 WWW.IAMPETH.COM

Flourishing the Acanthus Leaf by Heather Held

How to Use Computer Fonts in Calligraphy

William Costello, Commercial Sign Painter

VOL. XIX No. 3 WWW.IAMPETH.COM

The official publication of the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers, and Teachers of Handwriting (IAMPETH).

President.......................................Marie HornbackFirst Vice President..............................Jody MeeseSecond Vice President..................Neil McCafferyRecording Secretary.........................Karen BrooksCorresponding Secretary............Kathy SaundersTreasurer.................................Kathleen MarkhamAssistant Treasurer.......................Neil McCafferyDirector of Membership..................Pam HazelettScholarship Committee Chair.........Cindy HallerPenman’s Journal Editor..................Bob HurfordWebmaster..........................................Debi ZeinertCertification Committee Chair.............Ann CobbHistorian/Archive Chairman...........Bob HurfordBoard Member At-Large..................Mamie ValezBoard Member At-Large..........Clarence WinstonImmediate Past President.................Debi Zeinert

The IAMPETH Penman’s Journal (formerly the IAM-PETH Newsletter) of the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers, and Teachers of Hand-writing is published quarterly and is mailed to all current members.

The Association year dates from July 1 through June 30. Please visit www.iampeth.com for membership options and dues.

Items of interest, such as articles, samples of work, news clippings, study guides, and information concerning IAMPETH members should be sent to the Penman’s Journal Editor: Bob Hurford, 201 Pineville Road, Wrightstown, PA 18940 or emailed to: [email protected] part of the Penman’s Journal may be reproduced with-out the consent of the editor.If anyone would like to write an article for the Pen-man’s Journal, or would like to see a specific topic covered in a future issue, please write or email Bob Hurford at the above address.

ON THE COVER: Three flourished acanthus leaves by Heather Held. Her class is one of the most popular every year at the IAMPETH convention. You can read about her flourishings on page three.

Dear IAMPETH Family,

I love the longer days of summer and all the different activities they bring. It’s easy to become preoccupied with gardening, cookouts, vacations and family visits. I imagine some of you find yourself in the same boat and have to deliberately make time to do some practice work. For others, summer is a busy time doing bridal work. No matter our schedules, we find ourselves united in our love for the lettering arts. Many of us are looking for-ward the Denver conference and are probably getting all of our supplies to-gether, deciding which clothes to take, and getting excited to meet old and new friends. The challenge of learn-ing new techniques and improving our skills is sometimes daunting, but an experience we would not want to miss. An upcoming Penman’s Journal will feature the conference providing those who weren’t able to attend, a small taste of all the fun, classes, and festivities. There are still some jobs to do in preparation of the conference. Fortunately, my daughter and her family are visiting from VA., so I will put them to work. My daughter is an IAMPETH member but can-not attend the conference. The IAMPETH association is truly a team effort from those who serve on the Board to the many, many volunteers who will help us during the conference. I am thrilled that people are coming early to help with pre-conference activities. It’s amazing how willing people are to sacrifice time and expense to contribute to a successful week. Before closing, I want to emphasize something that is published in each issue but easily overlooked. We welcome submissions of articles written by our members. The articles do have to be evaluated and may need some editing, but we would love to see more involve-ment from our members. Keep writing and sharing your talents with others. Giving always blossoms and reaps rewards in many forms. The work we do is a thing of beauty and provokes many emotions. Each letter, each phrase, each document is a positive contribution to the world. Let the beauty shine!!!

Warm wishes,

3 IAMPETH Penman’s Journal 3

The acanthus leaf has been an art element for thousands of years. It can be so much more with flourishing and one of the top teachers of the art will show you how.

By Heather Victoria HeldSt. George, Ontario, Canada

or centuries, the acanthus leaf has been used decoratively in illuminated manuscript borders, sculptures, architecture, textiles and wallpaper. The leaves take on different qualities and charac-teristics down through the centuries and through

various cultures. Calligraphers and illuminators enjoy their charm and versatility as they can meander around your page as a striking gilded border, can adorn capital letters, serve as grace-ful line endings or add interest on any corner of your paper.

There is a fascinating resource titled Guide for Drawing the Acanthus, and Every Description of Ornamental Foliage by James Page. The com-plete book is available to read or download on archive.org. If you read through

James Page’s book you will discover his strong opinions about the acanthus leaf and how it should be designed. Because the plant has so many possible twists and turns, it

has a wonderful versatility as an ornamental motif. Scholars will argue about which particular genus

of the plant was the basis of the ornamental designs, but all will agree on its value and strong presence throughout history. Pliny the Younger believed it was nature’s chosen plant as you could throw it any direction and watch it fall into naturally graceful curves. The curves, twists and turns

A copper-plate engraved image from Guide for Drawing the Acanthus, and Every Description

of Ornamental Foliage by James

Page, first pub-lished in 1843 and reprinted in 1886.

The entire book may be downloaded at no charge at the Inter-net Archive, www.

archive.org.

Some sample acanthus designs from Medieval illuminated manu-scripts. By the way, not all acanthus leaf designs have to be green!


of the acanthus can be beautifully combined with pointed pen offhand flourishing techniques to create beautiful accents for your calligraphic work. The result is closer to Victorian Ornamental Design rather than the more robust acanthus designs of Medieval and Renaissance manu-scripts. The S and C curves are clearly visible in the images from illuminated manuscripts and Victorian engraved border designs. The British Library online is a wonderful resource for further research into Acanthus shapes, styles and colors.

Once you see the underlying structure, you will be able to create acanthus foliate designs very easily. Most curves are based on either S or C shaped curves. These underlying curves become the backbone or spine of our acanthus leaves. Each curve should transition gracefully from the preceding curve.

There are no “harsh elbows” in the curves. The structure of the acanthus is created around the skeleton

form of the curve. The curves and edges of the acanthus leaf are also delicate and graceful. Once you are happy with the shapes of your leaves and curves, the skeleton or spine of the structure can be erased or can act as veins in the leaf if you want to include them. Dimension is created with shadow and light. See the overall sense of movement in this very simple vine. Practice expanding simple curves into leaf forms and develop simple scroll designs.

The use of a gridded paper for these exercises is

very helpful if you are creating borders that you want to keep straight. The most challenging part of the design process for me is the twists and turns of the acanthus leaf. I usually design the ornament on gridded paper with pencil, including any floral touches. Once I am pleased with the design, I will transfer the main structure of the leaves to my art paper using a lightbox. The floral touches are done in true offhand flourishing style using ink directly on the paper rather than pre-drawing. This gives the ornamental design a more lively and organic feel. I often depart from my sketch and allow the process of offhand flourishing to take over.

There are many ways to paint and embellish the foliate designs. My favorite technique for painting the de-signs is a Victorian Line and Wash. My paper of choice for my gilding, illumination, painting and calligraphic work is Stonehenge 140lb Hot Press Aqua paper. I normally use McCaffery Brown for the inking stage as well as a medium flexible nib in a straight holder. The McCaffery brown pro-vides a very subtle Victorian effect.

If a stronger line is desired, Ziller Buffalo Brown ink is a good choice. I avoid black inks for this stage as the result is too harsh for my taste, but the choice is yours. Whatever you decide to use, test the ink on a piece of scrap paper to make sure it does not bleed when water is applied. I build up as much depth as possible at this stage with the ink, gently coaxing dimension into the design. The ink stage will start to take on the look of a Victorian etching.

The terminal lobes on the acanthus leaves are great

The underlying structure of the acanthus leaf.

Sketching the overall design on graph paper.


spots to add a touch of gilding. While adding the offhand flourished florals, I am also adding small berries that will serve as gilded areas in the final design.

The painting style that I use with the line and wash technique is much more transparent than what would be represented in a Medieval or Renaissance illumi-nated manuscript. The leaves are built up using a glazing technique. I lay down a wash of clean water on the leaves and then lightly drop in my colors and allow the pigment to settle. Once the paint has dried on the first glaze, you can continue to build up glaze layers until you achieve the desired depth of color. My final step on the leaves is to use a dry brush technique to create a sense of dimension. The flowers are painted using a much drier technique and a tiny pointed round brush. The painting process takes time, but it is worth it to continue to coax depth into your florals and leaves.

The final design has a whimsical quality to it. The gilded berries are further embellished with pointed pen filigree and Swarovski crystals are embedded into the centers of the florals. A background burnish of soft pastel was added to soften the effect of the border against stark white paper. These designs are so versatile. I encourage you to start drawing and experimenting with your favourite colors and see what emerges on the paper. Enjoy the process.

Sources for Further StudyOne of the best resources you can add to your studio for painting Acanthus leaves is Rosemary Buczek’s DVD Drawing and Painting the Acanthus Leaf. She goes into expert detail for the drawing and painting process of the leaves. The following books from Dover Publications are wonderful resources to add to your library:

Scroll Designs of The Early Victorian Period, 978-048623597Fantastic Ornament, ISBN: 978-0486452296Fantastic Ornament Series Two, ISBN: 978-0486491219Florid Victorian Ornament, ISBN: 978-0486234908A wonderful full-color resource that traces the progression of ornament through historic eras and various cultures is The World of Ornament published by Taschen, ISBN: 978-3836556255 One of the best resources I have found for explor-ing watercolor techniques is Billy Showell’s Botanical Paint-ing in Watercolour, ISBN: 978-1844484515

TOP: The sketch has been transferred and is ready for painting. BELOW: The finished product. Note the berries that were added and gilded.

NEXT PAGE!!!Here are some sample sketches and finished pieces to try. Have fun!!!


any callig-raphers use computer fonts in their

work. Why not? There are some very inventive fonts on the Internet that would be extremely time consuming to draw. Why bother when there is Photoshop? Photo-shop is able to set up your copy in exactly the size you need. What’s more, it can ad-just kerning (letterspacing) and word spacing to your specifications. The Character panel can condense or expand letters, individually or as a unit. Some of what is discussed here is available in Photoshop Elements, which may be viewed as Pho-toshop Lite. Adobe, Photoshop’s creator, offers a subscription program at adobe.com where one may download the full program for about $10 USD per month. Their other photography program, Light-room, is also included. On the full Photoshop pro-gram, the sky’s the limit for designs using fonts from everywhere. Headings in the Penman’s Journal rou-tinely use fonts “massaged” in Photoshop as are the drop caps that begin each article. Depending on how often one incorporates computer fonts into calligraphy or uses other pho-tography skills, the full Photoshop program may be a good deal. With the subscription, Photoshop and Lightroom are constantly updated. As you delve into Photoshop, you will discover many ways to accomplish the same task. What I have written here is what I believe is the easiest way to create outline type at this time. A future Photoshop update may make this task even easier.

A Look at A Small ProjectMy favorite broad pen is a quill, cut from a goose or turkey wing feather (or any other large bird). Re-cently, my wife gave me a jewelry-type box in which to keep them. The black velveteen top was nice, but I wanted more of a label. So, with the help of Photo-shop, I made one. The label area was 3 3/8 x 10 ½ inches, perfect for the barbless quills, which average about eight inches in length. In Photoshop, under “New” (PC: ctrl N, Mac: cmd N) I created a white background in that exact size at 400 pixels per inch (ppi). Under “Image + Adjustments,” in the flyout menu, choose “Grayscale,” as there won’t be any color. Grayscale also lessens the file size. Now for the label. I chose Duvall as my type-face (same as the heading above) and typed “uills” at 72 points, the maximum allowed. This may be the type maximum, but as we will see, not the maximum in Photoshop (see above). The ‘Q’ has not yet made an appearance; I have something else in mind for it. Let’s create the outline type. Be sure that the Layers window appears at the lower right. If it is not there, go to the “Windows” menu at the top, click it (‘click’ will always mean ‘left-click’ on the mouse un-less otherwise noted) and check “Layers” to bring up its window. Also check properties, which will pro-

By Robert HurfordWrightstown, Pennsylvania

The original size of the label’s background is 3 3/8 x 10 1/2 inches, the necessary size for the box. Type for “quills” is not yet in its final position nor in its final size.


vide useful Type-Layer properties. Highlight the type layer in the Layers window. It should be labeled “uills.” At the bottom is an “fx” for “effects.” Click and up will pop a menu for Layer Styles. Click “stroke” to bring up the dialogue box for strokes. The stroke color defaults to black, which is what we want. The question is: How thick to make the stroke? Normally in typography, a stroke of two or three pixels is a good look. But here, we want to be able to easily see our letters through tracing paper so that they may be transferred to the final substrate, in this case 140# Stonehenge Aqua. I selected a thickness of 14 pixels. You can’t see the stroke in the black letter, but it’s there.

With the type layer selected in the Lay-ers window and “Type” (the big ‘T’) selected in the Tool Box at the left side of the screen, click and drag the cursor over the letters. This highlights them in a black box. Now you need to turn the type white. At the lower left of your screen, you will see two boxes that represent foreground and background color. The box in front should be black as the type is black. The rear box is white as is the background. Click the front box and that will bring up the Color Picker dialogue box. Inside the square is a circle that should be at lower right in deep black since the type is black. We need to turn the type white. Click the circle and drag it to the top left for pure white. In the

color box the new and previous colors are shown. The “new” color should be white. Click OK and on the type layer, click outside the black area to release it. The type should be white, the stroke outlining the type should be black. Save your work into a .psd (Photo-shop Document) file. This preserves all layers in case you want to make changes in the fu-ture.

Photoshop provides a wealth of information to make your

tasks easier. Circled upper right is the history window that lets you see everything

you have done to a file so far. Tap any previous step to

eliminate the steps that fol-low. Nothing is permanent

until you save it. At right are the Properties and Layers windows. Any project may

have many, many layers. Each layer has specific infor-

mation that contributes to the image as a whole. Each

may be eliminated, duplicat-ed, or changed as needed.

With the “T” (circled left) highlighted, click just left of the mouse to get a flashing bar. Drag the mouse, left button down to highlight “uills” as shown above.


Adding the ‘Q’For my Quills label I wanted a Lombardic ‘Q.’ I wasn’t able to find a suitable Lombardic font online so I improvised. There is an excellent outlined Lombardic exemplar on page 58 of the most recent Speedball Textbook, 2015. Ross George designed it for the Hunt Speedball Company around 1930 and called it “Uncial Gothic,” but basically it is Lombardic. I scanned the alphabet from the 1933, 12th edition, of the Speedball

The Stroke--the outline of the outline type--is found in the Layers Style box which is found by clicking the “fx” at the bottom of the Layers window. Here, you may fix the thickness and color of your stroke. The default is black, but in a color file, you may choose any color. Since “quills” is a grayscale file, we can choose any color as long as it is black. Circled in the left Toolbox are two boxes. The forward box represents the foreground color and the rear box the background color.

Double-clicking the forward square (circled) in the left Toolbox will bring up the Color Picker box. Here, you may choose your foreground color. For outline type, choose white by clicking and dragging the litte circle in the box to the white zone in the upper left corner. You will see boxes for the current color (black) and the new color, white. Click “OK” and the type becomes white. However, the stroke remains black and you have your outline “uills.”

It was impossible to get a clean scan from Ross George’s Uncial Gothic exemplar. The letters were too close together. However, the eraser tool, set to 100% cleaned up the area around the ‘Q’ nicely. Since I scanned the letter at 1200ppi, I could enlarge the image without fear of pixelation. The original size was 1.3 x 0.98 inches. Enlarged to 3 x 4 inches, the ‘Q’ was still 390ppi, fine for printing.


Textbook at 1200ppi as the exemplar was reproduced larger than in the 2014 edition. (In scanning and re-production, size does matter!) The letters in the book are still not very large and scanning at a high resolu-tion will allow me to enlarge each letter a fair amount without the danger of pixelation. I then cropped the ‘Q’ out of the exemplar and immediately saved it to its own file. I want to preserve the Uncial Gothic exemplar for future use. Since letters in the exemplar are close together, it was not possible to crop a clean ‘Q’ so pieces of other letters had to be erased with the Eraser Tool. As you erase in the background, the erased areas will reveal

a checkerboard pattern. This is good. The back-ground is becoming transparent instead of white. Once pieces of other letters are eliminated, use the Quick Selection Tool (fourth from the top in the Tool Box on the left side of the screen) to select the rest of the background. Erase it all turning the entire back-ground transparent. For good measure, I also used the Quick Selection Tool to erase the inside of the ‘Q.’ Crop the image as close as you can and save it to a new .psd file. Bring back the outline “uills” file. At the top of the screen you will see a bar of the files you have made currently available. One should be the ‘Q’ file in which the background was erased. Click and drag

that file into the image area and release the mouse. Both the ‘Q’ file and “uills” should be present. With the Move Tool (crossed arrow icon at the top of the Tool Box), click and drag the ‘Q’ onto “uills.” Your ‘Q’ will appear with “uills.” Since each is its own layer, each may be moved where needed. With the Transform Tool (Edit + Transform), choose Scale

to enlarge or shrink each layer as needed. The Move Tool will allow you to move each layer into its de-sired positions. Save “Quills” to a new .psd file to keep those layers intact. You now have the finished “Quills.” Letters for “uills” are from a computer font while the ‘Q’ is actually a photographic image blended with the font to create a finished word. “Quills” is ready for printing, tracing, and transfer. It may be painted and/or gilded any way you like with more art elements added.

The ‘Q’ with the surrounding bits of other letters erased and cropped closely. There is still more work to do. BELOW: The background has been erased of the letter bits, but I want it to be transparent. First, highlight the background with the Quick Selection tool, circled left, fourth icon from the top in the Toolbox. Use the Eraser tool (circled left, 12th icon from the top) that will create a checker board pattern. The checker board pattern indicates that the background is erased and transparent. That will be important when the ‘Q’ and ‘quills’ are combined.


Above is a tricky maneuver that will ease combining ‘uills’ and ‘Q’ into a single file. With ‘uills’ in the main window, click, hold, and drag the name of the ‘Q’ file (highlighted in the elipse above) into the main win-dow until the ‘Q’ window pops up. You now have two independent files containing windows in your main window. With the Move tool on (circled at the top of the left Toolbox), click and drag the ‘Q’ from its window directly onto ‘uills.’ The ‘Q’ will pop up in the ‘uills’ file, but probably not where you want it. ‘Q’ will be on its own new layer so, with the Move tool still on, move ‘Q’ into position. ‘Q’s’ transparent background should allow you to move the letter as near to the ‘u’ in ‘uills’ as you want. Depending on your version of Photo-shop, moving ‘Q’ may revert the background to white. If it interferes with the ‘uills’ layer, go to Layer + Arrange + Send to Back to put ‘Q’s’ background behind ‘uills.” I also used the Transform tool (Edit + Transform) to enlarge the ‘Q’ slightly. I then moved it below the ‘uills’ baseline so that the stem of the ‘Q’ slid under the ‘u.’ Save ‘Quills” into a new .psd file to preserve the layers for any future use. Below you have a finished ‘Quills.” At this point, you may want

to combine everything into a single file by flattening the layers. Click the menu in the Layers window (look for four horizontal lines that form a square) and click “Flatten Image.” If you do flatten the image, imme-diately save it to its own file!!! That way, your layers are preserved in the ‘Quills’ file you saved previously. HINT: When you combine images as in the above window, make sure that they are the same resolution! Otherwise, the images will be out of proportion and one may look “different” than the other due to a difference in resolution. One image may pixelate or at least appear inferior to the other. Chances are good that you will not like the result.

BELOW, you see the finished ‘Quills,’ or is it? Any number of art ele-ments may be added. Acanthus leaves, image of a quill, whatever you like.


The Transform tool has many functions and what you see here is only a miniscule fraction of its possibilities. Go to Edit + Transform and you will then see a flyout menu (pic-tured below). To get all of the items on the menu, flatten your image’s layers then save the flattened image to a new file! All will be on its own layer. Notice a padlock icon on the layer. The layer is locked. Double-clicking the layer will unlock it. A window appears that gives you the opportu-nity to give the layer a custom name.

With the Transform Tool, Photoshop invites you to “play.” Nothing is permanent until you save it. If you don’t like what you’ve done, go to the History Window (Window + History), click above your latest transformation, watch it disappear, and try it again. Transform is not limited to type. Any selected object--or an entire image--may be transformed. You may also want to try out Perspective Warp, right above Free Transform.

The menu items under Edit + Transform are mostly straightforward. However, Skew, Distort, Perspec-tive and Warp beg you to play and allow each to show what it can do.

Skew

Distort

Perspective Warp(Star Wars intro?)

Transform + Warp(Stretch letters vertically)


Commercial sign painting is an overlooked segment of the lettering arts world. Though they mainly used brushes instead of pens, show-card lettering artists were calligraphers in every sense of the word. Commercial sign painters began to fade in the latter half of the 20th century and pretty much faded completely with the advent of the computer. However, one may still see hand painted signs at weddings, on restaurant menu boards and other areas where only one or two signs are needed for a short period of time. Tom Costello takes us back to his grandfather’s era and provides a rare, personal account of the workings of the early 20th century sign painter. There are not many today who can say they have been inside a commercial sign shop. --Bob Hurford

or forty-three years, William J. Costello owned and managed the Costello Sign Shop in the heart of downtown Scranton, PA, where he painted commercial signs and

billboards for local businesses, and show cards for retail stores, hotels and movie theaters. He lettered school diplomas, certificates and banners - and names in gold leaf on office windows and cars.

Mr. Costello came from a family of prominent artists. His father, Patrick W. (PW) Costello (1866-1935), was a nationally-renowned designer, engrosser and illustrator. P.W. and his wife, Mary Agnes Mahon, had nine children –five boys and four girls – all born in Scranton between 1892 and 1908. Given the considerable time demands of the engrossing profession in P.W.’s era, it was unusual for a penman to raise a large family.

Bill Costello was the oldest of five sons, three of whom were accomplished in diverse fields of art.

His brother, Jerry, a political cartoonist for forty years with the Knickerbocker News in Albany, NY, was syndicated in 75 Gannett newspapers nationally. A superb

illustrator, his cross-hatched pen portraits showed his father’s influence. Jerry was a pioneer in animated movie cartooning. He sold his first animated film to William Bray Studios in New York in 1918, several years before the emergence of Walt Disney. While on the cartooning staff of the NY Herald, he created “The Topsy Turveys” and “Cosmo” strips for the Sunday colored comic section.

After graduating from St. Thomas College in 1925, Bill’s youngest brother, Joseph, joined his father in his engrossing studio. They worked together until 1932, when P.W. had a heart attack and was unable to work again. He died in 1935. A decline in commercial demand for hand-rendered art, brought on by the Depression and World War II, forced Joe to work in sales with the Bell Telephone Co. In his free time, he continued to letter diplomas and engross resolutions into the mid-1950s. Several were published in the Business Educator.

At the age of 16, Bill Costello was listed in the Scranton Directory as an “Assistant to P. W. Costello.” From his father, he learned design, lettering and illustration. After graduation from high school, he

By Thomas W. CostelloEast Brunswick, New Jersey

William J. Costello, ca. 1920

Bill Costello’s second floor sign shop on Lackawanna Avenue, Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1919.

Perspective Warp(Star Wars intro?)

took sign painting classes through the International Correspondence Schools (ICS) in Scranton.

In 1915, Bill lettered and illustrated this and other covers of The Argus, a journal published by a local Jewish young adult organization. His use of acanthus along the borders was also one of his father’s favored decorative elements.

Bill entered the commercial sign business in 1919 during a period of economic growth in Scranton. At the time, there were five sign painting shops in the city. (By 1946, there were 15). He and his staff quickly established a

reputation for producing high quality signs, as described in this article from the Scranton Republican in October 1920:

“High class work in the line of commercial and show card lettering is being turned out by W. J. Costello and a capable staff at 209 Wyoming Avenue…One of their latest products adorns the front of the Army and Navy Sales Company store in the 100 block of Lackawanna Avenue. The sign is thirty feet in length with the figure of a soldier at one end and the design of a sailor on the opposite side. Between the two are large, colored letters spelling out the name of the firm.”

It’s hard to find photos of my grandfather’s signs because they were often mounted on the front of buildings that have been torn down. In a 1919 photo of his shop

(page 13), three of his signs are visible: SIGN PAINTING; W. J. COSTELLO SIGNS and Deckelnick Electric Co., a business owned by a family friend.

I was in my grandfather’s Spuce St. sign shop a couple of times in the early 1960s, just before he retired. The shop was long and narrow with wide floor boards and orange-yellow light fixtures hanging from the ceiling on long metal poles. Two high wooden tables, built at 45-degree angles, ran the length of the room, where he would block out and letter commercial signage. His shop was busy, so there were always a few large signs or show cards “in process.” Brushes, pencils, compasses and T-squares were everywhere. The smell of paint hung in the air. Most of his signs were painted on wood or heavy board,


Two covers of the The Argus magazine rendered by William Costello. Left is the July, 1915, issue with the September, 1917, issue at right.

Two signs prepared by William Costello for the Lobby Shop of the Hotel Jermyn in Scranton.

Small advertising signs such as these were the bread-and-butter for sign painters in the first half

of the twentieth century.

A well used drum cover lettered by William Costello.


many years before computers and more versatile materials, like vinyl.

Bill Costello did sign work for the Hotel Jermyn during the years when his shop was located next to the hotel. Pictured are two of his show cards that were displayed in the window of a store in the Jermyn’s lobby. He also lettered show cards for theaters and retail stores in Scranton.

A large framed banner, 2x4 ft, hangs in the Civil War Museum in Scranton (right). In Old English and Engrosser’s Text, Bill Costello lettered the heading and fifty-three names of former commanders of the General J.P.S. Gobin Camp 41. Many of them were descendants of Civil War veterans. He also shade-lettered the cover of a bass drum that was used by the same organization at field gatherings. Every year, Bill or Joe Costello would submit a bid for the contract to “fill” hundreds of diplomas for the Scranton School District. During the 1940s, winning bids usually fell between $.35 and $.40 a diploma. In 1943, Bill lettered my mother’s Central High School diploma.

P. W. Costello, my great-grandfather, died sixteen years before I was born, but I knew my grandparents. Bill and Ann (Calpin) Costello, had four children. My father, John, was their youngest.

During grammar and high school years, I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. When I was seven years old, I watched him letter my name and a short note on the inside cover of a Sunday Missal, a First Communion gift from my grandparents. Years later I realized that I had also been given a glimpse of his father at work, the artist who, four decades earier, taught him how to letter using a penholder and nib.

Like his father, Bill Costello loved baseball. When I was ten years old, he took me to the old Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia to see the Phillies and Mets, my first pro game.

Bill Costello died on September 22, 1973, the result of a stroke suffered several months earlier. He was 79.

LEFT: Like most penmen, Mr. Costello let-tered many diplomas. At left, he has penned the Central High School (Scranton, PA) di-ploma of Dolores Anne McGee, Class of 1943. She is the mother of the author of this article, Tom Costello.

BELOW: Mr. Costello was no slouch with a pen! Below is a 2x4-foot framed banner for the United Spanish War Veterans, General J.P.S. Gobin Camp No. 41. It hangs in the Civil War Museum in Scranton. General Gobin was also a veteran of the Civil War.

Robert Hurford201 Pineville Road

Wrightstown, PA 18940USA

askthemanwhoownsone

Not much is known about Mr. Karr, but his letters are a part of IAMPETH’s library. The colorful use of acanthus leaves is definitely worthy of study.

flourishing the acanthus leaf by heather held how to use ... · the acanthus leaf has been an art...

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