Learning Spencerian...

[Elle Dechene]

Hi Uncial, I finished Book One also, onto Book Two. Also doing a lot of the drills, they're a lot of fun!

[Indiana.Matt]

Not knowing anything about Spencerian, I stumbled upon the copy books by Mott Media back in 2007. I was hooked and placed my order with Mott Media then and there. I just recently sat myself down to learn the hand. Once I learned cursive in school, I never went back to printing as my everyday hand writing. The ironic thing is that I simply refused to trace the sample cursive letters in our penmanship books in school. I really despised penmanship at the time. In Jr. High I realized all the girls had nice hand writing and most of the boys had grotesque hand writing, including me. So I did my best to improve. I spent many hours in college preparing for tests by writing out everything I know about the topic. I used this time to focus on my hand writing as well. I occasionally get complements on my penmanship, but it is far from what I would like it to be. My letters tend to get big and loopy, including my descenders. I didn't realize how much my loopy descenders cluttered my writing until converting them to Spencerian.

 

I said all that to say, my everyday cursive is nothing like Spencerian, but I still use most of the traditional cursive letter forms, so the shapes of the letters are familiar. I have only been woking on Spencerian for a couple of weeks, but have already mad a significant change in my hand writing. I think the biggest thing for me, is changing my hand/arm position. I am used to planing my hand on the table and writing with my fingers.

 

I found this online:

 

"Hold the pen lightly:

If you grasp it too tightly

Your hand is made weary,

And your letters unsightly."

 

This shall be my motto.

 

I'm using a Zebra F-402 ball point pen to practice with at the moment. I would like to get an oblique pen to use and a flex nib fountain pen to take out and about. I am very eager to learn to shade, but I know that I just need to focus on getting the letter forms down first. I really like the subtle shading of Spencerian.

 

I'll add some samples sometime and ask for a critique.

[ac12]

IM

I have the Peerless oblique holder. It is about $13, and is a decent holder.

I would recommend starting with 2 particular nibs; Nikko G, and Hiro 41. The Nikko G is my standard nib. I will flex and the point is not so sharp that it will snag the paper. So it makes a good "starter" nib. The Hiro 41 is more flexible. Actually it is so flexible that I don't use it much.

 

Something that I read, a few times, learn the letter form and strokes with a pencil, ball pen or fiber marker. This way you can concentrate on learning the strokes and not get caught up in the effect of the nib.

 

gud luk

[Indiana.Matt]

IM

I have the Peerless oblique holder. It is about $13, and is a decent holder.

I would recommend starting with 2 particular nibs; Nikko G, and Hiro 41. The Nikko G is my standard nib. I will flex and the point is not so sharp that it will snag the paper. So it makes a good "starter" nib. The Hiro 41 is more flexible. Actually it is so flexible that I don't use it much.

 

Something that I read, a few times, learn the letter form and strokes with a pencil, ball pen or fiber marker. This way you can concentrate on learning the strokes and not get caught up in the effect of the nib.

 

gud luk

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have to get one of those.

 

I want to use Spencerian as my everyday handwriting, but can't exactly take an oblique holder and bottle of ink everywhere I go.

I was thinking about getting a flexible nib FP to use away from my desk. Do you think I will be happy with the results? I want to be able to add minimal shading to initial caps while writing.

 

What do you think?

[Uncial]

I've been using an EF Pilot Prera and I'm now on the last book. I can see a vast improvement, which is encouraging, but the paper quality in the books can be a little dodgy. There is no feathering, but there can be a touch of show through and bleed through, however the one real nark I would have is that the paper can be a little rough and when you are trying to be smooth and graceful that can be a touch annoying.

[Indiana.Matt]

I've been using an EF Pilot Prera and I'm now on the last book. I can see a vast improvement, which is encouraging, but the paper quality in the books can be a little dodgy. There is no feathering, but there can be a touch of show through and bleed through, however the one real nark I would have is that the paper can be a little rough and when you are trying to be smooth and graceful that can be a touch annoying.

Thanks!

[Indiana.Matt]

Here is a sample of where I'm at so far.

Thoughts and suggestions, please.

 

[goofeesteve]

Nice to see so many people interested in Spencerian and such great examples. I am still working on a steady movement but wrote this at a moderate speed.

 

[SkylarKnight]

Oh wow, all of this is lovely!

May I join the group?

I have purchased Mott Media's wonderful book, with all 5 notebooks, and am eager to start. I'll be using any ink I fancy that works well with the paper, and any pen that I fancy that day. I most likely will either practice with my Parson's Essential (M, italic) or with my Lamy AlStar (EF), however in the notebooks I will write with a pencil, so I can keep them for long in case I ever need them again.

Starting the reading right now

Edited December 4, 2014 by SkylarKnight

[Iso*]

Here is a sample of where I'm at so far.

Thoughts and suggestions, please.

 

 

Greetings,

 

Your work is fine, I believe. I think that for Spencerian-typed scripts, you may want to have your ending downstrokes to be more angular. Remember to complete your downstrokes too, such that each letter sits nicely on the baseline. And aim for further consistency too.

 

Your cursive is fairly good - many people seem to forget that movement comes first, rather than flex. In my exercises, I would practice with pencil before ink. ... There is a reason why back in vintage times, penmanship instructors would not allow you to take Spencerian / Ornamental script classes until you have mastered business penmanship (i.e. cursive, with no shading).

 

In the end, the more free your movement combined with control will yield good script. For my personal endeavours, I tend not to use my fingers. I write entirely with my arm. There are some that do use finger movement to a great extent and have fairly good forms, such as Schin of Openinkstand, or Michael Sull (the master penman). Others prefer arm movement only, such as Lupfer of the old Zanerian College.

 

I believe that you should try many ways of practicing the script. There are some advantages and disadvantages to using your arm, but I strictly adhere to arm movement...

Edited December 5, 2014 by Iso*

[drssalahuddin]

Here is what I have done today...

Well, not up to any of your great levels, I feel like being in the kindergarten while others are college graduates in spencerian!!!

[SkylarKnight]

Here is what I have done today...

Well, not up to any of your great levels, I feel like being in the kindergarten while others are college graduates in spencerian!!!

If you're in kindergarten, then I have nothing to say here.. Your work is wonderful! Looks absolutly beautiful.

 

 

Edited: just removed some stuff I was wrong about

 

Try to work on where you place the letters - I noticed some are higher than others (at the start and end of a word)

Edited December 5, 2014 by SkylarKnight

[drssalahuddin]

Thanks Skylar, still working on it.....will post some work after improvement.

[schin]

Lots of amazing work here, bravo!!

[ongnon]

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r163/ongnon/231220141794.jpg

[Intellidepth]

Hi all, joining the ranks of the novices. Using Theory of Spencerian Penmanship as my primer (love how descriptively specific he was) plus custom sheets from shipbrook with x-heights set to 2.5mm. Tried larger and smaller, but this is my preferred everyday size. (Larger is definitely easier though, and I use my current guideline sheets to improvise larger from time to time when I'm struggling with form/dimensions.)

 

Using FP's as I want this to become my everyday hand - can't see myself throwing an oblique etc in my handbag for the school run or a cafe chat Have discovered the need for a really strong page-to-body angle but I'm ok with that. I can see for sure how much easier it would be with an oblique for capitals in particular, which I've only just tentatively begun a few of.

 

I have a few stumbling blocks which I'll post here about from time to time to do with certain letter combinations of minuscules.

 

May I start with e's. Can someone please describe/show how an e should look in the word 'does', as opposed to 'seek'? I get frustrated with weird looking e's .

 

And o's. I can't figure out how the end of the o should link with, say, an r, s, or p.

 

With grateful thanks.

 

p.s. It took me at least 4 days of concerted reading to get through all the pages in just this thread. Most of the posts were way ahead of where I am! But inspiring.

[Sowulo]

Hi there. I'm doing spencerian copy books too. I'm on third one now and I'm now completely confused. Hopefully somebody will clarify everything for me. Capitals are what are bothering me the most. How does that 7th principle looks like? Because looks like my theory books doesn't match with copybooks. On a copybooks capitals like H, X, Z, Q, W, U, Y starts with seventh principle which looks like 9 with an oval loop at the top. But on the theory book on page 29, question 141-149 it is described as capital stem and does look completely different. With this principle capitals like A, N, M F T H K S I L G P B R Y (you can find those on the 3rd copybooks back of the cover). And in the copybook itself those capitals are completely different... Hopefully somebody will understand my confusion and explain everything...

[Tojusi]

Add one more fool to this. I ordered the Spencerian theory and copy books yesterday. I hope to do this with a pencil and maybe with a flexible fountain pen. Not looking to fall down yet another rabbit hole of crazy (=oblique holder dip pens) in addition to fountain pens...

[Intellidepth]

Because looks like my theory books doesn't match with copybooks.

Hi Sowulo, there appear to be at least four types of sets of capitals, some using the same principles and some using others. Search for "Spencerian" + "business", or "ladies", or "Italian", or "ornamental" and you'll see the variety out there.

 

For now, I'm sticking with the simpler set in Theories of Spencerian, but at the same time experimenting with other sets to find out if I like how they look/flow/read. So when I've been writing notecards, for example, I look for more ornate versions. I'm also looking for a couple of forms that are more easy on the modern eye to incorporate into my everyday hand, as some are difficult to decipher (eg L vs S). I have noticed, however, that the types of forms that differentiate the sets from each other hinge on the consistent echo of a few key elements, so they can't really be randomly swapped around. Although I'm playing with them. And finding that the people who designed those sets really really knew what they were doing visually. LOL. Funny that.

[Sowulo]

Hi Intellidepth. I realized these are different variations of capitals. But why they are different on the same set of books? Different on theory book and copybook... Probably I just have to choose one variation and stick to it...