Video transcript for Copperplate writing

[Music]

Dianne Robertson: Now, if you turn over to the back page you will notice some beautiful copperplate writing. And if you were very good at the slate, which I saw you were very good at the slate, you might be fortunate enough in the olden days to get a copy book from the teacher. The copy book had the first line at the top done and the child had to copy underneath. That’s why it was called a copy book. Now I’m going to show you something very special. You may not believe me but I have some samples here of some children who did some work in a copy book. Sometimes people say to me ‘Mrs Robertson, did a machine do that?’ And I say ‘No, a child did this.’ This is a true document, this was done by a girl called Emily Cunningham and on the back she did some very, very nice drawings. It is so perfect. This particular gentleman, his name was Claude Schumacher, his work was so good the teacher sent it to Great Britain for a competition. Guess who won the writing competition? Hands up if you think he did? You’re all correct. Hands down. I’m going to let you have a little look at these and then we will actually try some of this writing as well. Now we’re going to do our pen and ink copperplate writing. Now, you have an ink pen in front of you. Can you find it in and hold it up. Could you hold it horizontally please, and have a close look at it. Sometimes they drop down, don’t worry we’ll get that later. You are holding the wooden handle now. If you look you can see there is a metal nib. If you twist the nib you can see some of the underneath is like a hollow log and then there is a point on top. Try and keep the point on top when you are writing and the ink will run really well underneath. That’s the best way to hold it. Now, put your ink pen back in the groove of the desk and eyes and ears to me. Alright. I’m going to do a sample for you. Oh, you don’t have your name on here yet, we better do that. You know what happened to my inkwell last night, it dried up. I did not cover my inkwell, yours fortunately were covered. May I borrow your inkwell? I won’t use a lot of ink, I’ll just go quite gentle. Alright, are you all listening, no pens in your hands at the moment, watching and watching. In I go, I got it. Oh dear I’ve got a lot of ink on my nib, that will happen to you. It doesn’t matter though, I can scrape the side of the inkwell and get the extra off. I’ll use my inkwell that dried up last night. You’re lucky your inkwells are stuck in your desks, you don’t need to lift them up. Now, what was your name again young man?

Student:Daniel.

Dianne: I thought it was. I’m going to do a ‘D’ for ‘Daniel’. You don’t mind if I start your name, do you? The ink is not running so I’ll have to put it down that way. Oh that’s better. A capital ‘D’ for your name of course? Oh, absolutely. ‘Daniel’, ‘D-a-n-i’. Ooh, I had enough ink to do about four letters and now there’s a problem, now this is wet. Daniel, may I borrow your blotting paper to dry the work? I’ll just press it on-off and I’ll get the extra ink off. Lift it straight off, don’t put it on there and go sideways because that just makes a terrible mess. So, Daniel I’ll just finish your name. Firstly, I dipped in. Secondly, I am going to do a scrape all that extra ink. Third, I’m going to finish Daniel’s name. And then I must dry the name before I continue Daniel. Now, you’re lucky I’ve done your whole name. Daniel, when he gets this back he’s going to go straight to the back page. On the back page you can see the beautiful writing just done like that boy who won that competition. Now, we want you to copy underneath. Now, we’ve helped you by doing the first two. We’ve done ‘a’ and ‘b’ for you. Oh, Daniel my pen is drying out, I’ll have to dip again. And this is going to happen to you quite often boys and girls. You’ll have to go back and dip. Daniel’s going to finish tracing underneath these. Butthen, when he’s done the ‘b’ you can go anywhere on that page you like, copying underneath. Copying underneath. Let me try an ‘s’. Here we go, up. Oh Daniel, my pen is drying again. Dear, I don’t want to do too much of yours. Good listening boys and girls, pick up your ink pens and don’t forget little dips. Number one is do a little dip. Look at these two boys sharing the same inkwell. How clever, no fussing, beautiful. Number one … Do your name first boys and girls. Some of you have gone straight to the back page. We need your name on your work. Could you please help me clean the ink pens? And you’ll say ‘Yes, we can help.’ And you’ll say ‘How?’ And I’ll say ‘All you do is you open up …’ I call this my little rose, it’s an ink pen cleaner, we open up the petals and we stick the pen inside and we go ‘ch’, clean. But we can do that at the end. You’ll be too busy writing at the moment and drying, four things to remember. You’ve done well. You have to copy underneath. We did the first two for you, that’s why you traced the first two that gets a bit confusing doesn’t it? So, you’re going to copy underneath the rest. The ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘e’ are a little bit difficult. If you’d like to go down to the ‘t’ or finish off that ‘s’ that I didn’t do very well, that would be good. I like seeing the feet together and a little bit apart. Not only are the feet together and a little bit apart but your right foot should be about what I would say three inches, you might say eight centimetres in front, so one foot is in front of the other. The right foot is in front of the other. I’ll just check the girls’ feet. Ooh, I think there’s going to be some nice writing going on here. You’re doing a good job. That’s beautiful. Try and copy underneath. Well done. It’s a little bit blotty, would you say it’s a little bit blotty? Right, boys and girls we are going to stop your copperplate writing now. Can you please clean your ink pens with the ink pen cleaner? Separate the felt. Put the ink pens back in the groove of the desk and you can pass your work, pass your work to the end monitor. Here we go, well done. You’re doing a great job there, Daniel. Thank you very much.