Hi FPN members and experts!

In your opinion, do you think that learning Spencerian style or similar styles of handwriting is practical?

What would be required to learn a beautiful hand like Spencerian? (Practice is a given of course). Regular fountain pens? Books? Lessons?

Your input is much appreciated!

You'll need a super-flexy fountain pen or a dip pen to get the shaded thick-thing lines. After that: TONS of practice. My handwriting was influenced by a collection of family letters we have dating back to the 1830s. I don't know how officially Spencerian it is but it's lots of fun. I use dip pens mostly and a few old Wahls and Watermans which also have great flex.

I'm certain more people will make better contributions to this thread than I, but here goes.

Practical? I would say not. Beautiful, and unique in this day and age? Gosh, yes.

Please check here: http://www.iampeth.com/lessons.htm#spencerian
The site is a little disorganized, in my opinion, but it contains excellent material. Exemplaria, scans of actual lesson books...loads and loads of information. (As a footnote, IAMPETH's lessons were linked in the "Handwriting Aids and Links" thread stickied at the top of this forum. You may want to examine those stickies.)

As for hardware...you will need a pen with a very fine, flexible nib.

I suggest starting out with a dip pen and buying a nib or two. (There's actually a dip pen thread going in "Writing Instruments" at the moment.) This way you can practice writing and find out whether it's something you still want to pursue before taking the plunge.

If you decide you want to use a fountain pen, a lot of people will tell you that vintage flexible nibs are the "holy grail" for hands like Spencerian and Copperplate. I have zero expertise on vintage pens, so...hopefully someone else will contribute some more here!

Modern FPs with flexible nibs do exist, though. (check this out for an example) And even if the company does not manufacture a flexible nib, there are several highly skilled nibmeisters around who can add some flex to a normal nib.
However, note that a modern flexible nib will not be as flexible as a vintage flexible nib.

When you get right down to it, using a fountain pen is not really practical, by most peoples' standards; however, it is a much more elegant way to write, and much less fatiguing. In the same manner, learning Spencerian penmanship may not be practical, but it really is elegant.

If I were going to take the time to learn Spencerian, I would try the method used by generations of Spencerian pen artists before me. Mott Media (www.mottmedia.com - not affiliated) has republished the old theory and workbooks used by said previous generations.

Donnie

Pick up a Speedball Oblique pen holder with some nibs for around $12.00 and some caligraphy ink. Order the Mott Media Spencerian set of books from Amazon and have some fun.

Easy if you're patient and spend time practicing.

I wish I could find an oblique pen holder that uses a cartridge type fill system, dipping for ink is the only drawback.

For me, real Spencerian is not "practical" for everyday writing. However, I have the books mentioned above. When it became obvious to me that I was going to have to train my left hand to write due to arthritis in my right thumb, I ordered these books. They are a very helpful resource just for improving your everyday handwriting. Even if your goal is not official Spencerian, there's a lot of information here about the forms and spacing of letters. No, I'm not writing Spencerian with my left hand, but my left hand-writing is much better since studying these little books.

Judybug

Caliken pointed me to a nice link stickied at the top of the penmanship forum: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...?showtopic=2036 that has instructions and worksheets.

I played with this a little bit just to see what kind of flex I could get from my Namiki Falcon - the answer was, more than I expected and more than I have the guts to use, but less than you need for proper Spencerian. I think it would be fun to experiment with this hand, though I can hardly see using it for everyday writing. It would be worth learning for learning's sake, though, and for special occasion writing - invitations, special entries in a journal, scrapbooks, etc. I have not doubt that just practicing it would improve one's everyday writing, as Judybug mentioned upthread.

eta: somewhere around here - I think under reviews for the Falcon, someone shows an absolutely beautiful example of Spencerian done with a modified Falcon nib. I believe her conclusion that it wasn't really ideal for this type of writing, though I am not completely sure.

Heeey, I resemble that remark

How would you organize it differently? I'm open to suggestions.

James Ivey
IAMPETH Webmaster
www.iampeth.com

I hope it's okay if I offer my opinion, even though I'm not the one to whom you're replying. So, a few things you could do to improve the site:

* Have the table of contents in the same order as the actual contents.
* Group like sections together. (So, why is Spencerian Ladies Hand several sections removed from Spencerian Script?)
* Consider using structural markup tags for the section headings (<h3>, e.g.). And please don't underline text that is not a link.
* Consider placing each section in a separate page.
* Don't have links come up in a separate window. (Yes, that one may be just my own personal preference. On FPN, I think it works; on IAMPETH, I think it doesn't work.)
* Consider reducing the size of the PayPal donation area.

Of course, the content on the IAMPETH site, dear webmaster, is outstanding!

Dan

Thanks a bunch, Dan. I really appreciate it. I'll definately consider implementing some of those.

Best regards,

James

Hi,

Try going to Youtube or the IAMPETH website and watch the videos by Dr. Joe Vitolo. He makes it look so easy and he uses an oblique pen holder, just like the masters. Also, goto Yahoo groups and join the Ornamental Penmanship newsgroup. Joe and a lot of other very talented people hang out there. I only lurk since I don't have the time to learn something new right now and my Spencerian looks anything but.

My personal feelings about Spencerian and the like is they are very beautiful and I appreciate anyone who can write like that. But for everyday practical handwriting I do not think they are very practical.

Thank you and have a gret day!!

James E. Merritt