Quick Question - Cursive, Italic, Stub

[SkylarKnight]

Just a quick question - Could someone explain to me the difference between a cursive italic and a cursive stub nib? (although I am sure both are the same), and also - which one gives more variation - italic or cursive?

And lastly, could someone show me the difference between a fine italic \ cursive and a medium one?

I have been looking online for the past hour, but no luck. I am deciding on which nib to put on an Italix Parson's Essential pen I am going to purchase tomorrow. I've been thinking of getting an EF or F as I usually do, but I do enjoy the stubs Art so kindly ground for me, and I would like to keep using those (also, hoping they will be of use in making my handwriting more beautiful and less cramped - I cannot read my own letters sometimes!)

 

Thanks for all the answers, in case there are any Hopefully soon I'll be able to show some penmanship progress - having my new pen and a guide book for Spencerian font that I ordered off of amazon (that bloody website ">>)

 

Good day\night everyone!

[Omnias]

I may be wrong, but I think italics tend to be crisper and more pronounced in line variation, but less smooth in writing and require more precise angles. I believe a cursive italic has some rounding on the corners to make it smoother, whereas a Stub would be like a oblong oval/ellipse that is meant to be the smoothest but sacrifices line variation because of it.

[linearM]

Check out this link:http://www.franklin-christoph.com/specialty-nib-info.html. It has a good set of diagrams. Also look at: http://www.richardspens.com and check out the reference section. Do a search for nibs and you will have a very good explanation of all types of nibs. Richard's Pens has all sorts of information to answer questions you might have.

 

Cursive italic nibs have slightly sharper shoulders and require a bit more practice to use them. Stub nibs have slightly rounded shoulders and are a bit more forgiving. If you had a BB nib ground to a cursive italic and another to a stub the cursive italic would have more width because of the amount of metal taken to round the tip. I use cursive italic nibs all the time for correspondence. If you were to get a 1.5mm cursive italic it would probably be considered more of a calligraphy pen.

Edited November 22, 2014 by linearM

[AndrewC]

One good place to start is here;

http://www.richardspens.com/

Once there go to Reference Pages, scroll down to Nibs and Feeds, then reads parts 1,2, and 3. 1 and 2 I think are the most apt for answering the questions you posed. He even has viusals of line widths and comparison shots.

 

Briefly, Italic will be sharper than Cursive, or Cursive Italic. It will have a small sweet spot with very crisp delineation of line. Some are sharp enough to cut the page. Cursive is rounded a little and will give line variation, but not as crisp a line. It is also not as finicky to use. A wider nib will give more variation, but you can not write small or everything will blur together. I actually have a couple nibs that are cursive italic and flex, in the vain hope it will improve my writing. Actually it does.

[TheRealScubaSteve]

Edited November 23, 2014 by TheRealScubaSteve

[inkstainedruth]

  On 11/22/2014 at 11:03 PM, linearM said:

Check out this link:http://www.franklin-christoph.com/specialty-nib-info.html. It has a good set of diagrams. Also look at: http://www.richardspens.com and check out the reference section. Do a search for nibs and you will have a very good explanation of all types of nibs. Richard's Pens has all sorts of information to answer questions you might have.

 

Cursive italic nibs have slightly sharper shoulders and require a bit more practice to use them. Stub nibs have slightly rounded shoulders and are a bit more forgiving. If you had a BB nib ground to a cursive italic and another to a stub the cursive italic would have more width because of the amount of metal taken to round the tip. I use cursive italic nibs all the time for correspondence. If you were to get a 1.5mm cursive italic it would probably be considered more of a calligraphy pen.

Thanks for posting the franklin-christoph link. I like the fact that they show diagrams from both looking down at the nib and looking at it in profile,

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ac12]

 

  On 11/22/2014 at 10:37 PM, SkylarKnight said:

> also, hoping they will be of use in making my handwriting more beautiful and less cramped - I cannot read my own letters sometimes!

 

Thanks for all the answers, in case there are any Hopefully soon I'll be able to show some penmanship progress - having my new pen and a guide book for Spencerian font that I ordered off of amazon (that bloody website ">>)

 

 

I'll take the easy question.

The nib will NOT make your handwriting more beautiful and less cramped, especially as you move from a XF/F to a stub or CI nib.

 

The wider stub or CI nib will make you handwriting messier and harder to read, if you do not change your hand. This is simply due to the wider nib. To use a stub or CI nib, you NEED TO write wider. A word that took 20mm horizontal space with a F nib, may take 30mm with a stub or CI nib. This is simply due to having to write wider to compensate for the wider nib. Someone on the forum said if you cannot see the inside of the loop of the lower case e and l, then you are writing too small for the nib size on the pen. So you need to write larger, until you can see the space on the inside of the lower case e and l.

 

If you want less cramped writing, YOU need to adjust your hand to expand your writing. The way I did it was to get wide ruled paper (8.7mm line spacing) rather than the usual college ruled (7.1mm line spacing). Then used a wide M nib (vs. my usual F nib), so I was forced to write larger, then writing so that I fill the line vertically with my writing. This had the effect of expanded my writing horizontally as well. I did this by learning to use my ARM rather than my fingers to write. Using my arm to write, I can now write larger easier than I ever could by finger writing.

 

If you cannot read your handwriting, then you need to work on basic letter forms, to get your handwriting readable.

I many cases, the current letter form is sloppy because of speed of writing. Or where fast sloppy writing has replaced your old nice writing.

 

If you want really nice handwriting, you need to write at a somewhat slow pace, where you can control, your hand.

In my experience, when I write FAST, as in taking notes in class or meetings, I can expect my handwriting to be BAD. My handwriting get progressively worse as I speed up, and is absolutely UGLY when I try to write FAST. In college, I had to rewrite my notes in the evening, while I still remembered the lecture, or I would not be able to read my notes later. Yeah that bad.

 

I went to the IAMPETH web site and downloaded the various Palmer style instructions to relearn the letter forms. This was for daily cursive writing, not for ornamental penmanship.

 

You NEED to practice and practice correctly.

You need to retrain your hand and arm muscles to write correctly (the way you want to write), and that takes repetition, to build muscle memory. I wrote for 1 to 2 hours every day for 3 months, to train my arm to write. In the beginning I wrote slowly, as writing with my arm was strange and clumsy. As the muscles got used to writing, things became easier and faster. What I am saying is you have to stick it out until your muscles are retrained, then things will go smoother.

 

gud luk

[SkylarKnight]

  On 11/23/2014 at 5:27 AM, ac12 said:

 

 

I'll take the easy question.

The nib will NOT make your handwriting more beautiful and less cramped, especially as you move from a XF/F to a stub or CI nib.

 

The wider stub or CI nib will make you handwriting messier and harder to read, if you do not change your hand. This is simply due to the wider nib. To use a stub or CI nib, you NEED TO write wider. A word that took 20mm horizontal space with a F nib, may take 30mm with a stub or CI nib. This is simply due to having to write wider to compensate for the wider nib. Someone on the forum said if you cannot see the inside of the loop of the lower case e and l, then you are writing too small for the nib size on the pen. So you need to write larger, until you can see the space on the inside of the lower case e and l.

 

If you want less cramped writing, YOU need to adjust your hand to expand your writing. The way I did it was to get wide ruled paper (8.7mm line spacing) rather than the usual college ruled (7.1mm line spacing). Then used a wide M nib (vs. my usual F nib), so I was forced to write larger, then writing so that I fill the line vertically with my writing. This had the effect of expanded my writing horizontally as well. I did this by learning to use my ARM rather than my fingers to write. Using my arm to write, I can now write larger easier than I ever could by finger writing.

 

If you cannot read your handwriting, then you need to work on basic letter forms, to get your handwriting readable.

I many cases, the current letter form is sloppy because of speed of writing. Or where fast sloppy writing has replaced your old nice writing.

 

If you want really nice handwriting, you need to write at a somewhat slow pace, where you can control, your hand.

In my experience, when I write FAST, as in taking notes in class or meetings, I can expect my handwriting to be BAD. My handwriting get progressively worse as I speed up, and is absolutely UGLY when I try to write FAST. In college, I had to rewrite my notes in the evening, while I still remembered the lecture, or I would not be able to read my notes later. Yeah that bad.

 

I went to the IAMPETH web site and downloaded the various Palmer style instructions to relearn the letter forms. This was for daily cursive writing, not for ornamental penmanship.

 

You NEED to practice and practice correctly.

You need to retrain your hand and arm muscles to write correctly (the way you want to write), and that takes repetition, to build muscle memory. I wrote for 1 to 2 hours every day for 3 months, to train my arm to write. In the beginning I wrote slowly, as writing with my arm was strange and clumsy. As the muscles got used to writing, things became easier and faster. What I am saying is you have to stick it out until your muscles are retrained, then things will go smoother.

 

gud luk

"To use a stub or CI nib, you NEED TO write wider"

Which is exactly why I want one ^^ I have a custom ground stub, thanks to Art, and I notice it's making me write wider and bigger, which is good for me

 

I do actually use my art to write, monirly, but it's there. I just have started to notice my handwriting getting too small for my EF pens to keep up (needlepoint dip pen, EF Lame, EF Duke).

 

"If you want really nice handwriting, you need to write at a somewhat slow pace, where you can control, your hand."

I notice sometimes that my handwriting tends to look a bit better when I write faster because fast writing forces me to write bigger. Maybe that's just that the letters start to be a bit more visible? I dunno.

 

I ordered a book on Spencerian, since that's a font I sppreciate very much, and since I don't need to do note taking or anything like that, I can write in a more relaxed manner and take on tougher fonts.

 

I will definitely do that, the training thing. I know that handwriting is less about the pen and more about the way you write, but I find that certain pens make my hand look better (aka, my custom ground stub), and make it easier for me to write.

 

 

 

 

Thanks everyone for the answers, I'll look into the suggested websites Excited to order my pen tonight