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New Member Seeking Your Penmanship Advice...


LJ50

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For pretty much the last decade or so I have written with a PIlot Hi-Tec C (or G-Tec C4 as it's known in the UK) and people have frequently commented on my apparently distinctive, spidery scrawl. Note I say "commented", never "complimented"... About 6 months ago I decided to try writing with a fountain pen, as I just think they look really quite elegant. Sadly, they haven't made my writing so.

 

As I've said in the introduction forum, I'm coveting some beautiful pens to go with the cheaper ones I've assembled already, but my handwriting really doesn't deserve that Custom Heritage 912 with a PO nib....

 

Below is a few samples of my writing, having been reading this forum for the past few months, I'd really feedback from some of the experts. Where I went to school (west of Scotland in the 1980s) there was no style taught. Basically, if your writing was barely legible, you were considered taught.

 

I am fairly "time poor", but also quite stubbornly determined, so if anyone can recommend a style that will need as little adaptation from my natural "style" as possible, but which will look better, then I'd be really grateful and promise to put the effort in to change.

 

http://i57.tinypic.com/2jfaosp.jpg

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the lower case f needs work the bottom loop that rises to the top needs to connect to the main downstroke. As it is right now it looks like you a skinny capital C and you are saying the quick brown Cox which, well doesnt read well hahaha. I really like your lower case G, the other part is consistency with the your slant and letter heights, dont feel bad my writing is not that great you can see it in the post your handwriting forum. Anyway that is what I noticed I hope that it helps some what.

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Thank you. Appreciate you taking the time to feedback.

 

You're absolutely right regarding my f. Funny. I never really picked up on the confusion to the capital C before.

 

You're also absolutely right regarding my lack of consistency. That's my biggest problem. I write a lot. I take a lot of notes. But no matter how much I write, I never find any consistency.

 

My signature is comical. I don't think I've ever managed to sign exactly the same in any two attempts.

 

Just ordered the Getty book Write Now, having looked through the content linked here and found it a bit of a struggle to find a path to using it all. A bit overwhelming. Hopefully he book is easier

 

Thanks again.

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try using French lined paper it has lots of marks horizontally that you can use to line your letter heights up to for the capitals and the lowercases. slow down, you have to retrain YEARS of habit and repetition is the only way to do this. the way I try is forcing myself to go slow and repeat the same word or letter, stroke, shape, or what have you over and over and over. The improvements will be very slow to show but keep your starting point which you have handy now in this forum post and compare it a couple months from now and see the difference. Speaking of the worst for me is making my "e" not filled in even with a fine point I can not ever seem to nail that down.

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The method that I used was

  • use wide ruled paper, approx 8.5mm line spacing.
    • In your case I would use 4 or 4.5mm line spacing and use that as the height of your lower case letters. 2 lines for upper case letters, and down 1 line for your decenders. This way you have height markers for all your letters.
    • And try to write to those lines, so the letters are more consistent in height.
    • Also watch the vertical position of the bottom of the letters. Put it on the line or float it, but keep it consistent. If you float the letters above the line, keep the float height the same.
  • use a M nib pen
  • try to write to fill the line space
  • used arm movement to write (I used to be a finger writer)
    • Writing with my arm, lets me write larger than finger writing.
  • PRACTICE. I wrote 1 to 2 hours EVERY DAY for 3 months before I was seeing decent results.
    • As was mentioned, it is this lengthy practice that will do the retraining of your muscles to write in the new manner.
    • And practice has to be of your target hand. Because it is that hand that you want your muscles to get used to writing.

The wide ruled paper and M nib forced me to write larger to maintain legibility. Writing small lets me hide mistakes.

 

If you have trouble with individual letters, practice those.

 

I found that to get a nicer hand, I needed to slow down. Speed kills my handwriting.

Even today, while I have what I consider decently good handwriting, it starts to degrade when i speed up, as in note taking. And it falls apart when trying to take notes fast.

San Francisco Pen Show - August 28-30, 2020 - Redwood City, California

www.SFPenShow.com

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Your handwriting is not that bad. Unfortunately, as you have discovered, just using a fountain pen will not immediately turn poor handwriting into beautiful handwriting. Still, your style is not very different to a style I was taught years ago. My memory is on vacation at the moment, but I will get back to you with the name. You will be able to find examples and books, if you wish to go that far, on that particular style of handwriting. It will not be a big transition from where you are now to the best of its form. I will get back to you with the name. In the mean time, do not despair.

 

-David.

No matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationery. -Anon.

A backward poet writes inverse. -Anon.

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...... if anyone can recommend a style that will need as little adaptation from my natural "style" as possible, but which will look better, then I'd be really grateful and promise to put the effort in to change.

 

http://i57.tinypic.com/2jfaosp.jpg

In my opinion, your writing is clearly Italic in construction.

If you take a look at this example, written rapidly in Italic by calligrapher Tom Gourdie (a fellow Scot) , you'll see what I mean.

 

fpn_1415716354__untitled-g600.jpg

 

There are no loops in your ascenders, and your minuscules show the characteristic wedge shapes which clearly define an Italic influence. It would take some effort on your part, but I believe that you are already on the way to a natural Italic hand.

 

"Write Now" is probably the best book on Italic Handwriting currently in print....a good choice IMO.

 

Ken

Edited by Ken Fraser
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Thank you all for taking the time to respond. It's much appreciated.

 

First thing I'll be doing with the book is looking up "ascenders" and "miniscules", seems I have a lot to learn!

 

I'm happy to put the effort in to develop a better hand. I didn't think it would be easy, and I'm the worlds least creative person (ironic, considering my job, but that's another tale) so anything that involves shapes is a particular challenge. But I like a challenge.

 

This really is an excellent forum, I'm in danger of reading too much and a) becoming too ambitious snd B) confusing myself. Will stick to basics with the book and see how I go from there.

 

Thanks again.

 

LJ

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I'm certainly no expert as some posters are, but my first thought was not spidery scrawl. It is fairly consistent in letter shapes and very legible. The first thing I noticed was that you tend to begin sentences off of the line (I do the same, but more towards the end of a sentence). As greensparcs pointed out, your "f" could use some work to be more clear and I think that your "j" could use some straightening, but other than that I think your writing has nice character. The other biggest thing I noticed is that much of your writing is quasi-cursive much like my fast print writing. It might look much neater if you chose one or the other.

 

I can second the suggestion at french-ruled paper - I tried it for my own consistency and find it works quite well with some practice. It was a bit straining on my eyes at first with so many lines, but I got used to it within a day or so. The other thing you might consider is an italic nib which can add some elegance to penmanship. I also agree that a medium nib might suit you better. I fell into the E/F category because my handwriting tended to be small. I now find anything below medium to be too small and it has forced me to take the time to space out my letters accordingly. Very fine nibs tend to look messy in my opinion unless the writer has ultra fine lettering, which you do not appear to.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I had never heard of French lined paper so I did a quick online search. I found a great place for templates called printablepaper.net. Not only does it have one (or more) for French lined paper, but there's an entire section for penmanship.

 

And, BTW, I've had a chance to see ScubaSteve's handwriting since this post and the improvement is amazing! :)

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Clairefontaine and Oxford both make French-ruled (Seyes) paper, which can be bought from Amazon.

 

The first thing I thought upon seeing your handwriting was that cursive Italic would come easily naturally to you.

Edited by BookCat
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