How To Improve My Cursive?

[Kamm]

I thought I would start by practicing my cursive to improve my penmanship and man is it horrible. I'm seeking advice on how I can improve. Anyone wanna help?

[ac12]

Go to IAMPETH and download the Palmer guides.

 

Then practice.

- Do the exercises first, then progress to the letters.

- I did 1-2 hours a day of just writing...anything. It took a while but my hand and arm have been retrained to write much better than I did before.

- For me the hardest part was, I also changed from finger writing to arm writing. That was even harder than the penmanship part. It took me 3 months of daily practice before I could start feeling comfortable arm writing.

- Besides the time, I used WIDE ruled paper, so it would force me to write larger. Writing larger forced me to pay attention and write better, as I could not hide bad writing by writing small.

- I also slowed down my writing so that I was in control of my hand. Speed kills my handwriting. Slow enough to be in control and writing strokes, and not so slow that you are "drawing" the lines.

 

gud luk

[pmhudepo]

I agree with ac12: visit the Rare Books section on www.iampeth.com.

 

Get the basics right. You only need a few basic strokes and angles to "build" your letters. In Theory of Spencerian Penmanship, also available on IAMPETH, each letter is decomposed into principles. Even if you aren't going to learn Spencerian, your writing should benefit from this approach. Adding a personal touch to a script will happen naturally; first, get the basics, the idea right.

 

Develop a light hand and fluid motion, perhaps by doodling or sketching instead of writing and desperately trying to make each letter perfect. Develop a rhythm, slower on the downstrokes, quicker and lighter on the upstrokes.

 

Have a lot of fun!

[Lou Erickson]

The Palmer book ac12 suggests, and moving to arm writing made a huge difference for me. If I slow down and write carefully, I have much better handwriting than I did when I started. I struggled terribly with penmanship in grade school, and wish they'd have covered some of the things that were in the 1935 Palmer book.

 

Those things were: How to sit properly, which muscles to use to write with (shoulder!), light grip. I've had the right grip on the pen, but always clenched it tightly. I guess I thought it was going to escape.

 

Down there in my signature is a link to a bunch of my handwriting; it's terrible! But that's because I'm going fast - I'm not concentrating on my handwriting any more, but the words I'm writing. That happened when I got interested and excited in what I had to say. I should slow down again and make my actual writing better.

[Tom Traubert]

Practise, practise, practise. And stub nibs! They are making the biggest difference to my hand.

[Kamm]

Thank you so much guys.

[a m a r g o]

Go to IAMPETH and download the Palmer guides.

 

Then practice.

- Do the exercises first, then progress to the letters.

- I did 1-2 hours a day of just writing...anything. It took a while but my hand and arm have been retrained to write much better than I did before.

- For me the hardest part was, I also changed from finger writing to arm writing. That was even harder than the penmanship part. It took me 3 months of daily practice before I could start feeling comfortable arm writing.

- Besides the time, I used WIDE ruled paper, so it would force me to write larger. Writing larger forced me to pay attention and write better, as I could not hide bad writing by writing small.

- I also slowed down my writing so that I was in control of my hand. Speed kills my handwriting. Slow enough to be in control and writing strokes, and not so slow that you are "drawing" the lines.

 

gud luk

 

Great info, thanks!

 

 

[a m a r g o]

As many already said: practice, practice and... yes, more practice!

 

My cursive is quite different from when I decided to use it again, almost eight years ago. You're going to find your own style through practice and everyday writing... in an unknown amount of time; don't let frustration to limit your practice time or avoiding you to write everything in cursive, from the grocery list to memos or meetings summaries, it's the only way to improve and acquire a style of your own.

 

Good luck!

Edited September 25, 2014 by coppilcus

[ac12]

Yeah, when you start it is goina be hard, because it is all new stuff for your muscles, and it will feel clumsy.

Keep practicing, and once your muscles stop complaining about the "strange" movements, thing will get better and easier.

And keep an eye on the lesson material, so you don't go too far off track.

I had to relearn how to write several of the letters because my own handwriting has evolved over time, and I forgot how to write some of the letters, as taught in the books and grade school.

[a m a r g o]

Interesting use of practise as a verb and practice as a noun... And the other way around in the States or is it only practice for verb and noun?

Edited September 25, 2014 by coppilcus

[BookCat]

Spend some time just writing straight, evenly spaced, downstrokes l l l l etc. After a few pages of this, join them from the bottom of one to the top of the next, always putting the emphasis on the downstroke. This will help with rhythm and slant. After this you'll need more complex exercises such as those found at the source mentioned by others in this thread.

 

You don't have to join every letter in a word, it's okay to break at an awkward join and will keep a long word from deteriorating toward the end.

 

Hope some of this helps, but the best suggestions were made by those higher in the thread.

 

Here's a vid you may find useful, though I think the style he's writing is Italic rather than Palmer:

Edited September 29, 2014 by BookCat

[iRabb]

The Palmer book ac12 suggests, and moving to arm writing made a huge difference for me. If I slow down and write carefully, I have much better handwriting than I did when I started. I struggled terribly with penmanship in grade school, and wish they'd have covered some of the things that were in the 1935 Palmer book.

 

Those things were: How to sit properly, which muscles to use to write with (shoulder!), light grip. I've had the right grip on the pen, but always clenched it tightly. I guess I thought it was going to escape.

 

Down there in my signature is a link to a bunch of my handwriting; it's terrible! But that's because I'm going fast - I'm not concentrating on my handwriting any more, but the words I'm writing. That happened when I got interested and excited in what I had to say. I should slow down again and make my actual writing better.

 

Are the Palmer guides still available on IAMPETH? I can't seem to find them.

 

Thanks,

 

Ben

[Randal6393]

 

Are the Palmer guides still available on IAMPETH? I can't seem to find them.

 

Thanks,

 

Ben

Yes, check the Rare Books tab.

 

Enjoy,

[Lou Erickson]

I found them under "Lessons" then "Cursive Writing" That page has a link to three of them. I found the first, the oldest, the clearest and most helpful.

[ac12]

Interesting use of practise as a verb and practice as a noun... And the other way around in the States or is it only practice for verb and noun?

 

Don't look at me. I can't spell for beans. Spell checkers help, but dang if they find the strangest words.

I wud rader spel fonetikly, den I don't mak so meny mistaks.

Edited October 23, 2014 by ac12

[knarflj]

Interesting use of practise as a verb and practice as a noun... And the other way around in the States or is it only practice for verb and noun?

 

The current American standard is to use "practice" for both the noun and the verb. Once upon a time (judging by a ninety-year-old dictionary that once belonged to my grandfather) we used both spellings more or less indiscriminately.

[MusinkMan]

I thought I would start by practicing my cursive to improve my penmanship and man is it horrible. I'm seeking advice on how I can improve. Anyone wanna help?

I would say slant slant slant...consistent slant and a fairly pronounced slant will help more than anything. To me, your writing is nice and legible, but for the most part it is straight up and down (look at the f's in 'fox'). But then some letters have a quite pronounced slant such as your s, r, u, etc. This "mix" of straight letters (and some slant letters thrown in) causes the handwriting to be disjointed and it does not seem to have "flow". You know what I mean...something just doesn't look right and it appears a bit distressing to read). I think your handwriting is really nice and legible...a consistent slant will take it to a whole new level.

 

Consider the visual effect of this... As opposed to this.

 

See what I mean? I'm certainly no handwriting expert, but I do know that consistent forward slant is one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve the appearance of your handwriting.

Edited October 24, 2014 by MusinkMan

[Mickey]

Architectural consistency, of which slant is only one element, is what makes a handwriting attractive. There are two basic families of handwriting, counter based and stroke based. Counter based hands rely heavily on the shape of enclosed spaces to provide consistency. Italic is probably the most famous and popular of these hands and its most important counter is the space enclosed by the lower-case a. That space (unaltered, reversed, inverted, etc.) forms the backbone of the hand. Palmer and Spencerian are the most famous stroke-based American hands. The entire alphabet of either can be constructed from a small number of basic strokes. Learn the strokes correctly and a correct, consistent, and attractive handwriting will result.

 

Your present writing is a poorly learned Spencer descendent. The easiest way to improve it would be to relearn the basic strokes, the Spencerian Principles, correctly, which would also include embedding a consistent slant angle. The basics can be found here http://www.iampeth.com/books/practical_penmanship/new_standard_index.php (Spencer) and here http://www.iampeth.com/books/palmer_method_1935/palmerMethod_1935_index.php (Palmer) and http://www.iampeth.com/books/mills_modern_business_penmanship/Mills_Modern_Business_Penmanship_index.php (Business hand). There is no substitute for practice. Start with the basics and don't try to run before you can walk.

Edited October 24, 2014 by Mickey

[The Keeper]

Thank you for all those advices which are very helpful.

I had one question concerning the use of the arm-writing rather thand hand-writing does it really make a huge difference ? Or just practicing strokes and letter is fine ?

[Mickey]

If the hand presumes some contribution from the arm (most, if not all American cursive forms do) you are not learning the actual strokes by simply aping marks on a page. Follow the instructions for how the marks are supposed to be produced for which ever hand you choose to learn. If you don't, you will gain very little from your practice.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Mickey