training wheels for calligraphers

[ursula]

Recently, the caid-scribes mailing list had a conversation about the kingdom's use of charters, that is, pre-printed award certificates that can be painted and personalized for individual award recipients. (Technically, Caid doesn't call these things "charters", but the scribes themselves seem confused about what word they DO use.) Somebody mentioned lack of experienced calligraphers as a reason that the kingdom can't handle more original scrolls. To me, this seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy: if one of your main ways of creating scribes is encouraging people to paint charters that have pre-printed text, you will inevitably end up with more experienced painters than experienced calligraphers.

I wonder if there's a way to make charters for calligraphers? I know that as a calligrapher, one of my main psychological barriers to taking on a new project is the tedium involved in ruling lines. If someone picked a standard calligraphic hand, pen size, and award text, kingdoms could mass-produce charters with blank lines. This could be done directly on the paper if folks were willing to trade pre-ruled lines for individual calligraphy, or budding calligraphers could use a translucent paper and place the pre-ruled lines underneath as a guide.