Re-Learning Cursive With Palmer

[isoc]

I am 67 years old and am starting to re-learn cursive. It's better than when I was 9 years old ( I can provide a sample of that, too!) But after years of hurry up and careless writing, I need to get back to some basics and improve.

 

Palmer seems to be what my Mother and my Uncle learned in public school in the 1920's, looking at their penmanship.

 

To begin with, I feel like Palmer is a like a 'golf lesson." Grip and stance are amply illustrated and emphasized. The grip is close to what I have always done, but I think I have always been a "finger writer" to form letters.

 

In the IAMPETH Palmer book I downloaded, when I look at those first drills, I am curious as to how large the circles and lines actually are. If I am making 48 point letters (I can typeset from a California Job Case and run a letterpress, too.), it's pretty easy to use the muscular action. But when I get to the smaller size letters I typically write, I feel like I've got to fall back on fingering to form most of the letters.

 

That said, here is a contemporary sample of my typical mindless writing when I'm in a bit of a hurry and not paying much attention, compared to the Psalm verse which I tried to write more carefully. After I wrote that verse, I wasn't too happy with it: I've done better. But it is a reasonable sample of my re-learning efforts.

 

- Ted

 

[yogalarva]

I really wanted to learn Palmer cursive, but I just can't not finger write. Too many years of math and physics doing teeny-tiny superscripts and subscripts to break the habit. Good luck on your endeavors though! The carefully written Psalm looks very neat and tidy to me. :-)

[Iso*]

Allow me to advise, hopefully in a non-harmful way.

 

Back then, almost everyone did movement exercises to begin their journey in penmanship. I see that often times (well I don't see many people on this forum do it, I am limited in observation) many people omit the exercises and go straight to the forms.

 

Well, here you can see one thing - if we are to run before we can crawl, we will fall. I have found that doing ovals, often times by the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands can vastly improve your skills, especially in acquiring the so-called renowned arm movement. Well, it should not be intimidating. I am left handed... and at 200 ovals a minute (I think) you can do about 2,000 in about 10 minutes. In an hour, you can do 12,000. I have found myself doing ovals for a very long time, filling up vast amounts of lined paper.

 

I usually use a very fine pencil, generally a drafting/mechanical pencil and start swinging off. Never a fountain pen. Those come later. Most oval exercises simply state to do ovals 2/3's as wide as they are tall, and slanted at approximately 50 or 52 degrees, depending on the source. 52 is generally for cursive stuffs like this. Previous masters of script often suggested doing 2-3 pages front-back of this sort of movement exercise.. don't be afraid of metaphorically burning your paper away. You get skills.

 

I found myself greatly improving after just barely using the arm movement, by killing my fingers and warming up my arm. I saw a great improvement of 10% within (IMO) this week's practice. I have been in this art for almost a year now... really should have been using the arm more. I was formerly a overwriter and extreme-pressured, but now I can do both.

 

But the benefits are wide. By using the larger arm muscles, you can write, and keep going for a very long time. How did you think penmen and pen-women of the past handled this kind of workload, especially in circulars where they had to address hundreds of people every day? It just adds to the power and force that arm movement has.

[isoc]

Thank you both for your replies.

 

Some of the benefit of the excercises - being able to write pages of script for hours on end, are of little interest to me.

 

What I want is more consistent and better shaped cursive. When I write "fast", just like when I use a keyboard fast, mistakes go way up. So a bit slow is OK with me.

 

But some of the penmanship demos I've seen on You Tube were painfully slow, although the script was beautiful!

 

- Ted

[pmhudepo]

I've been using EC Mills' Modern Business Penmanship, also found on IAMPETH. He starts with ovals and drills "two spaces in height", which I've taken to mean to lines. That is, the visible bit of paper with your Psalm text should fit 4 lines of oval / pulling movement exercises if you leave no blank lines. Later on, he instructs you to reduce in size, so the "Be a rock..." line should, I think, fit one line of exercises.

 

Ultimately, I reduce that to half a line so that I may also write a minuscule letter o with a whole arm movement.

 

What helped me most, so far, is to use a very fine nib, forcing me to use the lightest touch I could muster. It tends to show all flaws, all shaky lines, all hesitations. Keep moving forward (literally, across the page), very light and pretty swift upstrokes, bit slower on the downstrokes.

 

As an alternative to text book drills, consider writing while listening to the TV or radio. Write whichever word you pick up first. The result will probably be the strangest text ever, but it may force you into letter combinations you might otherwise avoid. (The was posted by caliken a little while ago.)

[Randal6393]

Hi, Ted,

 

The demos on YouTube are demonstrating calligraphy, usually. The form of the letter is the goal. On the other hand, notetaking is for the purpose of getting all the information down in as short a time as possible. Most handwriting strikes a balance between the two, depending on the message and form of the writing.

 

If you want to improve your hand, the best advice I have had from this forum is to write a sentence or two, study the letters, and pick two or three "worst offenders" to work on. Then work a bit on those letters, and write a sentence or two again. Have you improved? If yes, move on. If not, try again. Repeat as needed.

 

Best of luck to you,

 

PS: Welcome to FPN!

 

PPS: Drills are nice but I don't use them. Find that the time is better used in studying letters to see how they are written and writing to improve my hand.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Randal6393

[Mickey]

I think you'd be better off repairing your handwriting with Spencer. I abandoned American style cursive for nearly 30 years in favor of an italic-base handwriting. What I learned in school was Palmer (later Noble). It didn't stick. I recently (2 years ago) relearned American cursive using the Michael Sull Spencerian materials (http://www.johnnealbooks.com/prod_detail_list/34). This stuck. My cursive handwriting now gets unsolicited compliments (e.g., yesterday while writing in a coffee shop). My recommendations:

 

Start with the Spencer method books (Mott facsimiles) http://www.amazon.com/Spencerian-Penmanship-Theory-Book-copybooks/dp/088062096X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389204055&sr=8-1&keywords=spencerian+penmanship

 

followed by a brush up study with http://www.iampeth.com/books/ames_guide/ames_guide_index.php

 

[isoc]

  On 1/8/2014 at 5:11 PM, Randal6393 said:

Hi, Ted,

 

The demos on YouTube are demonstrating calligraphy, usually. The form of the letter is the goal. On the other hand, notetaking is for the purpose of getting all the information down in as short a time as possible. Most handwriting strikes a balance between the two, depending on the message and form of the writing.

 

If you want to improve your hand, the best advice I have had from this forum is to write a sentence or two, study the letters, and pick two or three "worst offenders" to work on. Then work a bit on those letters, and write a sentence or two again. Have you improved? If yes, move on. If not, try again. Repeat as needed.

 

Best of luck to you,

 

PS: Welcome to FPN!

 

PPS: Drills are nice but I don't use them. Find that the time is better used in studying letters to see how they are written and writing to improve my hand.

Thanks for the greeting and tips. I think I'll still try some of the drills, especially to see if I can develop some of the "muscular" ability. But I won't get carried away with them. I like your tip of working on a letter or two at a time. Focusing a lot on the drills reminds me of a book I once bought on how to play an organ. The first recommendation of the author was to take 10 years of classical piano. I found another book instead!

 

Best regards, Ted

[isoc]

  On 1/8/2014 at 6:11 PM, Mickey said:

I think you'd be better off repairing your handwriting with Spencer. I abandoned American style cursive for nearly 30 years in favor of an italic-base handwriting. What I learned in school was Palmer (later Noble). It didn't stick. I recently (2 years ago) relearned American cursive using the Michael Sull Spencerian materials (http://www.johnnealbooks.com/prod_detail_list/34). This stuck. My cursive handwriting now gets unsolicited compliments (e.g., yesterday while writing in a coffee shop). My recommendations:

 

Start with the Spencer method books (Mott facsimiles) http://www.amazon.com/Spencerian-Penmanship-Theory-Book-copybooks/dp/088062096X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389204055&sr=8-1&keywords=spencerian+penmanship

 

followed by a brush up study with http://www.iampeth.com/books/ames_guide/ames_guide_index.php

 

Hi Mickey, It's a bit early for me to give up on Palmer, after only a week! But thanks for suggesting an alternative. It's on my radar as a possibility.

 

- Ted

[Mickey]

  On 1/9/2014 at 4:05 AM, isoc said:

Hi Mickey, It's a bit early for me to give up on Palmer, after only a week! But thanks for suggesting an alternative. It's on my radar as a possibility.

 

- Ted

 

I hear you, but I wouldn't think of it as giving up so much as making a course correction. Palmer was, in my opinion, little more than a compromised monoline Spencer packaged with a classroom methodology. (Ames did a better job of it.) Not studied in a classroom, the little that was good about Palmer is lost. Spencer is, again in my opinion, more attractive and easier to learn. Its difficulty does not really show up until you get to ornamental penmanship.

 

Even as you decide to continue with Palmer, you might consider at least a quick perusal of the Spencerian materials on the IAMPETH website. They could provide useful insights into the letter forms.

[barleycorn]

Hello Ted:

Congrats on the resolution to improve your writing. My suggestion is to concentrate on getting your letter forms consistent - yes that means slowly at first. Then you can speed things up and keep it neat. I would suggest getting some french grid paper or print some lines on a printer at the x height. This will help to get the proportions of the ascenders and descenders correct. So if you want to write 8mm high, print the lines every 4mm. That will keep the small letters - a, c, e, i, u n, m, etc - the correct size.

[pmhudepo]

  On 1/9/2014 at 5:12 AM, Mickey said:

 

I hear you, but I wouldn't think of it as giving up so much as making a course correction. Palmer was, in my opinion, little more than a compromised monoline Spencer packaged with a classroom methodology. (Ames did a better job of it.) Not studied in a classroom, the little that was good about Palmer is lost. Spencer is, again in my opinion, more attractive and easier to learn. Its difficulty does not really show up until you get to ornamental penmanship.

 

Even as you decide to continue with Palmer, you might consider at least a quick perusal of the Spencerian materials on the IAMPETH website. They could provide useful insights into the letter forms.

 

Mickey, have you read Edward C. Mills' Modern Business Penmanship? I think he does a good job explaining letter forms. For instance, the minuscule l:

 

http://www.iampeth.com/books/mills_modern_business_penmanship/Mills_Modern_Business_Penmanship_page26.html

 

On the next pages, he combines this letter with parts of m and w (which were discussed on earlier pages) to teach h and b. Similar approaches for different letters.

[Mickey]

  On 1/10/2014 at 9:46 AM, pmhudepo said:

 

Mickey, have you read Edward C. Mills' Modern Business Penmanship? I think he does a good job explaining letter forms. For instance, the minuscule l:

 

http://www.iampeth.com/books/mills_modern_business_penmanship/Mills_Modern_Business_Penmanship_page26.html

 

On the next pages, he combines this letter with parts of m and w (which were discussed on earlier pages) to teach h and b. Similar approaches for different letters.

 

Yes, I have looked at Mills and agree that the explanations are excellent. I still prefer the letter forms in Ames and the conceptual clarity of Spencer.

 

http://www.iampeth.com/books/ames_guide/ames_guide_index.php

[isoc]

  On 1/10/2014 at 9:02 AM, barleycorn said:

Hello Ted:

Congrats on the resolution to improve your writing. My suggestion is to concentrate on getting your letter forms consistent - yes that means slowly at first. Then you can speed things up and keep it neat. I would suggest getting some french grid paper or print some lines on a printer at the x height. This will help to get the proportions of the ascenders and descenders correct. So if you want to write 8mm high, print the lines every 4mm. That will keep the small letters - a, c, e, i, u n, m, etc - the correct size.

Thanks for the encouragement. Part of my poor initial writing is years of bad habits due to rushing to write something down. Working slower, getting the spacing of letters better, proportions, slant at a consistent angle and so on are all things I need to work on.

 

And it is good to get a variety of advice. Though I do feel a bit like Bilbo Baggins talking to Lord Elrond in The Hobbit, "Do not go to the Elves for advice, for they will tell you both yes and no."

 

- Ted

[Mickey]

  On 1/10/2014 at 3:08 PM, isoc said:

Thanks for the encouragement. Part of my poor initial writing is years of bad habits due to rushing to write something down. Working slower, getting the spacing of letters better, proportions, slant at a consistent angle and so on are all things I need to work on.

 

And it is good to get a variety of advice. Though I do feel a bit like Bilbo Baggins talking to Lord Elrond in The Hobbit, "Do not go to the Elves for advice, for they will tell you both yes and no."

 

- Ted

 

Slowing down is important, but not just for the sake of taking more time and care. Good writing is rhythmic. Writing a curved line between points A and B consumes more ink than a straight line. Writing that curved line should consume more time, too When one rushes, the first thing lost is the timing difference between curved and straight lines spanning similar distances. The curves get munged. So, as you now take time to smell the roses, also take time to listen for the rhythm.

[barleycorn]

  On 1/10/2014 at 3:08 PM, isoc said:

Thanks for the encouragement. Part of my poor initial writing is years of bad habits due to rushing to write something down. Working slower, getting the spacing of letters better, proportions, slant at a consistent angle and so on are all things I need to work on.

 

And it is good to get a variety of advice. Though I do feel a bit like Bilbo Baggins talking to Lord Elrond in The Hobbit, "Do not go to the Elves for advice, for they will tell you both yes and no."

 

- Ted

I enjoy writing so I take some time and effort to work on it and learn new forms and styles to keep things interesting. Also, with many fountain pens and inks at hand I feel they should be put to regular use. I start slowly to practice then soon the right forms become habit. Keep at it and post some more samples of your progress.

[isoc]

  On 1/10/2014 at 5:41 PM, barleycorn said:

I enjoy writing so I take some time and effort to work on it and learn new forms and styles to keep things interesting. Also, with many fountain pens and inks at hand I feel they should be put to regular use. I start slowly to practice then soon the right forms become habit. Keep at it and post some more samples of your progress.

Thanks again, and thanks for the image with the letters and Psalm. I had a real "aha" moment when I re-looked at my practice sheets so far and saw how they could be better-used.

 

Now I need to practice a bit for a fortnight, and see what happens.

 

- Ted

[isoc]

Here is a sample of my improved hand writing after some practice. Still working on consistency and eliminating tension, and some other things, but I'm about 40% now to where I want to be, and feel I've moved in the right direction.

 

- Ted

 

[isoc]

Here is a current sample from the "practice sentence" thread. I now think I'm about 70% on my way. I can definitely feel a rhythm in some of the writing, and am getting a bit more consistent, now.

 

[Joe in Seattle]

Very rapid progress, congratulations!