Is It Worth It To Change My Grip?

[Liora]

When I first got into fountain pens I quickly discovered that I was using the 'grip of death'. I switched to tripod and it only took a month or two to not only get used to it but to surpass my old quality of writing. And it made writing a lot more enjoyable because of the infinitely less fatigue and discomfort. Definitely worth it!

 

Very encouraging to hear! I've not documented how much time I'm spending, but for the last couple of days it easily exceeds three hours a day (which is undoubtedly not the best way to go about this, but I digress). A happy discovery is that my printing has taken on a consistency I have always wanted and been mystified as to how to achieve before this. Last night I left my Rhodia pad on the desk, having practiced a few quotations. This morning when I flipped the light on, I was surprised by how much the writing has improved. There's a consistency with the cursive as well. I had a LOT of wiggle room with my old grip, and my pen wiggled this way and that, producing many different angles. I'd say it's already worth it to me for just these couple of benefits.

[Liora]

Hi, Bo Bo,

 

You've given me lots of great terms to research! I'll be checking YouTube for examples. I'm right eye dominant, for what it's worth. Thanks for your comment!

[Bo Bo Olson]

Good, eye dominance is important.

Look in Google where they will refer back to FPN. I don't know if there is much on 'forefinger up' on YouTube.

Our search section is still green screen.

[Rednaxela]

This page from the book Real Pen Work (1881) might be of interest. It explains the various movements in writing and offers a drill for each one separately as well as exercises for combined movements.

 

[Tojusi]

I used to have a weird but not awful grip. This was noted on in school when I was a kid but it never got corrected. I was quite ok with a mechanical pencil, but as a result, I was a finger writer who did very small letters.

 

I have since then trained myself to the regular grip - in adult age, with fountain pen. It is much more comfortable to write this way and not tiring like the tight grip finger writing. Plus my handwriting is prettier.

 

Weirdly enough, whenever I'm using a ballpoint pen (which I go out of my way to avoid), the grip always reverts to the old grip.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Tojusi, a ball point needs so much more pressure than a fountain pen, like plowing the south 40 with out the mule, so the old grip works for dragging the ball through the paper.

[knarflj]

Liora, I have just been discovering recently that each different script seems best written with the particular grip and motion it was designed for. (I am a little slow on the uptake: I have been reading forums and books on various hands for a couple of years now, at least!)

 

For instance, if you're writing Spencerian script or one of its derivatives (American business hands), the letters will form more correctly and the hand flow more easily if you hold your pen so that your wrist is almost parallel to the writing surface, your hand glides on the tips of the fingers (or nails) of the smallest two fingers, and you use your whole arm to write, resting lightly and rotating as needed on the pad of the forearm just below the elbow.

 

For italic, you want to roll your hand over on its side, and use the wrist rather than the whole arm.*

 

But that said, something like the standard tripod grip is best for just about any hand I've tried. I haven't attempted Copperplate/Engrosser's Script myself, because I don't have the proper pen. (Well, okay, I have played around enough to know that it would not be easy to do with a modern italic nib on a fountain pen. ) But from what I remember of my reading, the hold would have been very similar to Spencerian. That info is from reading period stuff, by the way: the "pen" in that case would have been a quill, cut on an angle, like a modern oblique italic nib. I can't speak at all as to how you'd hold a modern oblique nib holder.

 

Jenny

 

* This is not to say that you can't replicate the proper letter shapes using the "wrong" hold and motion. But if you use the grip, hand position, and writing motions recommended by the experts in a given hand, somehow the shapes sort of take care of themselves.

[Zhangsherry]

On 7/14/2016 at 10:30 AM, ac12 said:

Liora,

 

Use the grip that is best suited to you for the lettering style you want to write.

 

I totally agree with ac12 ideas, use the pencil grip can help you to correct the wrong posture of holding the pen or pencil, I also use the pencil grip from https://www.huaxiangstationery.com/products/2/c-2/, which is very helpful for griping the pencil. 

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Zhangsherry

[inkstainedruth]

In addition to what other people have said, Liora, I'm wondering how your current grip would work with the type of oblique pen holder that is, I believe, often used for Spencerian script in particular (where the nib doesn't come directly out of the end, but is offset from the line of the penholder itself).  I've never used one of those myself, but have seen other people, such as Nik Pang, use them.

Even for "traditional" calligraphy hands such as Uncial or Italic, I'm wondering (no offense) whether you'd have trouble -- simply because I'd think you'd have trouble seeing what you're writing.  

@ Bo Bo Olsen -- I hadn't even considered the "eye dominance" part of things.  And I probably should have -- because while I'm so right-handed I'm also right-FOOTED, I got diagnosed by an eye doctor a number of years ago as being left-EYED (my old frames had gotten bent and he said "Oh, you get a lot of headaches don't you?" -- and it was because I wasn't looking through the lenses correctly because of that).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth