Cross Townsend with a fine nib ground down to an italic
Mont Blanc black
Plain old notebook paper pad

I love both italic and spencerian handwriting, and was playing around tonight trying to marry the two. I'm pleased with what has developed so far......

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Very, very interesting connection. Thank you James, great work!

In my opinion, this is a successful and interesting marriage of styles. I can see this being the starting point for those wishing to develop an individual and different hand. With this in mind, can I suggest that it might be a good idea to post the complete alphabet for study?

caliken

Thank you, tipstricks and caliken, for your very kind words.

I really have not studied the spencerian Caps very much... and they're the most fun!

But here's what I've got so far in the small letters. This is still very much a work in progress...

James
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What a fun combination! Good Job!

oof! I like the result, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the execution. I tried playing with Spencerian a little bit after some helpful suggestions people made to me about trying out the (semi) flex on my Namiki Falcon. However, I found that my natural hold for the pen was to have the slit facing slightly counter clockwise, as if I was using an italic nib. It's a struggle for me to hold the pen so that the tines line up for the optimum spread and slope to get the line thickness for flexy styles. So, the idea of combining italic with a flex style....eep!

Which way are you holding the pen?

Hi limesally,

I'm using a purely italic penhold (for a right-hander). Hands rests over on its right side. Pen barrel sits high on the 3rd knuckle of the index finger. And the nib (its an italic-cut nib) is at 30-45 degrees to the baseline. Or, as you put it, slightly counter-clockwise.

I probably use 70-80% finger movement when I'm writing.

Hope that helps,
James