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Cursive. An Arch Nemesis Turned Ally. Also, Can Someone Show Me A Nice Capital N? Thanks.


dadoody

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Cursive.


Cursive was once a hated foe. My nemesis. Growing up in both public and private schools, I was forced to write in cursive. With a ballpoint pen. With teachers always correcting my script as being wrong or unreadable. I was copying the script THEY TAUGHT me, but crack open 2 cursive workbooks, and I got 2 DIFFERENT scripts.


The infuriating part was that I was always wrong, the writing was always ugly, cheap bic pen cursive was never a fun experience, and it put me off of cursive. In my adult life, I got into fountain pens, because of the tactile feel. My cursive writing was quick and ugly, but enjoyable because of the joy of smooth and tactile pens and inks.


Recently though, I purchased pilot metro with a "caligraphy" nib, and something strange happened. When I wrote with it, my writing actually looked almost beautiful to me. That was strange....so I started practicing. And practicing. Letters that looked ugly, I googled and started copying script that looked attractive to me. I started to take ownership of cursive. I started writing cursive on my own terms, and it's become something of a positive feedback loop - the prettier, to me, that my writing became, the more I've been practicing. Recently, people have been COMPLIMENTING my handwritting, which has never happened before.


I'm not sure if I can ever learn and write in beautiful Spencarian or Copperplate/Roundhand, but I'm enjoying the writing practice I've been doing. So maybe one day, I could get into those. But for now...I'm just enjoying cursive.


Strange days. I'm actually enjoying cursive...


Anyways, my name has a capital N, but I don't like any of the capital Ns I write. Can anyone send me a nice capital N script that they think I might like? Thank you :)







32191994_10155878444313171_1734943964680




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Lovely.

I was given my first italic nib at 12 and, as for you, writing became fun.

My capital in is like yours in Netflix and I like that N in your script.

Others will have ideas.

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I write my capital N like yours - I think it looks good! Very nice handwriting.

Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I found out long ago.

~C.S. Lewis

--------------

Current Rotation:

Edison Menlo <m italic>, Lamy 2000 <EF>, Wing Sung 601 <F>

Pilot VP <F>, Pilot Metropolitan <F>, Pilot Penmanship <EF>

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This is the "N" I was taught in elementary school.

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/N_cursiva.gif

 

 

 

That is the N I've been using for 30 years, and I've always hated it. I'm rejecting giant lowercase n at the age of 37, because it has no flair, and it's just a giant lowercase n, being passed as a capital. I reject this Palmer/D'Nealian N. Reject ittttt! :(

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never give up! Good Job!

 

41952555192_7ded3a7c77_c.jpg

Wow. I couldn't do that with ballpoint at all. Also, I can't find a capital N in there, but the color is too light for me to see well :(

Edited by dadoody
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It is funny that you rejected that which I loathed most before I improved my handwriting. That goes the same for the two Biro's above. It is zen when you have reached a level of penmanship that is somewhat acceptable by your standard. For me, it is as above. I have embraced Palmer that which I once considered as a childish cursive form of handwriting.

The original Palmer Method starts with the very basic of American cursive which is Business Penmanship. The next stage of penmanship is a lot more colorful, with shading and flourishes. This stage is called Ornamental Penmanship and is what I reach for but still, I feel I am not ready for it yet. I must obtain a much stronger foundation first.

Look closely at the word Nancy Next etc... I am using a red pen and my writing is light, so it is not readable ...you need to enlarge the image.

May the force be with you.

Edited by _InkyFingers
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Cursive.

 

Cursive was once a hated foe. My nemesis. Growing up in both public and private schools, I was forced to write in cursive. With a ballpoint pen. With teachers always correcting my script as being wrong or unreadable. I was copying the script THEY TAUGHT me, but crack open 2 cursive workbooks, and I got 2 DIFFERENT scripts.

 

The infuriating part was that I was always wrong, the writing was always ugly, cheap bic pen cursive was never a fun experience, and it put me off of cursive. In my adult life, I got into fountain pens, because of the tactile feel. My cursive writing was quick and ugly, but enjoyable because of the joy of smooth and tactile pens and inks.

 

Recently though, I purchased pilot metro with a "caligraphy" nib, and something strange happened. When I wrote with it, my writing actually looked almost beautiful to me. That was strange....so I started practicing. And practicing. Letters that looked ugly, I googled and started copying script that looked attractive to me. I started to take ownership of cursive. I started writing cursive on my own terms, and it's become something of a positive feedback loop - the prettier, to me, that my writing became, the more I've been practicing. Recently, people have been COMPLIMENTING my handwritting, which has never happened before.

 

I'm not sure if I can ever learn and write in beautiful Spencarian or Copperplate/Roundhand, but I'm enjoying the writing practice I've been doing. So maybe one day, I could get into those. But for now...I'm just enjoying cursive.

 

Strange days. I'm actually enjoying cursive...

 

Anyways, my name has a capital N, but I don't like any of the capital Ns I write. Can anyone send me a nice capital N script that they think I might like? Thank you :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

32191994_10155878444313171_1734943964680

 

I don't know, but you just sold me a calligraphy Met. :)

My latest ebook.   And not just for Halloween!
 

My other pen is a Montblanc.

 

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Is the calligraphy Metro the same as the 1.0 stub? Cause I kind of want one now too...

Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I found out long ago.

~C.S. Lewis

--------------

Current Rotation:

Edison Menlo <m italic>, Lamy 2000 <EF>, Wing Sung 601 <F>

Pilot VP <F>, Pilot Metropolitan <F>, Pilot Penmanship <EF>

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If the ruling is 5mmx5mm of the paper, then italic pen is 0.8mm or 1.0mm.

 

While you are using an italic nib or stub...Why not learn Italic cursive? And would the N below gives you an idea which N you would like?

 

 

 

 

post-120164-0-95387900-1525916997_thumb.jpg

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Here's my modest contribution. Most are from different dip pens, a couple of pencils, a fountain pen and a thin-line marker. Sometimes I write more vertically, sometimes more with a slant. The last one is my rendition of my son's initials (NM).

 

I was trying to make them slightly differently, but they all end up looking like my "N".

 

I printed for 37 years before re-teaching myself cursive a couple of years ago. I also consistently received "C's" in penmanship. I hated some of the Palmer forms, of which the "N" was write up there with "Q" and "Z".

 

It's now my only way of writing unless I'm filling out forms. What I did was basically look at a bunch of different example, choose the letter forms I liked, and then wrote them, a lot. I refined some of the forms I didn't like so much and I have ended up with a fairly uniform cursive hand. If I take my time I can write fairly neatly. That's one thing dip pens do, they force you to write more slowly so I tend to write better.

 

fpn_1526047613__18_05_11_n.jpg

 

 

Another example of my cursive. This is from last September.

 

fpn_1505141822__17_09_11_twsbi_aurora.jp

 

“When the historians of education do equal and exact justice to all who have contributed toward educational progress, they will devote several pages to those revolutionists who invented steel pens and blackboards.” V.T. Thayer, 1928

Check out my Steel Pen Blog

"No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the mistake is to do it solemnly."

-Montaigne

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Wow! Very nice!

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm going to look into Italic and try some this dip pen thing. I just bought an oblique and a calligraphy set.

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