Cursive Lowercase Q

[Vlad Soare]

For the past couple of weeks I've been trying to get in the habit of first finishing an entire word, then going back to dot the i's, cross the t's, etc. I used to finish each letter prior to going on to the next, which wasn't very efficient, not to mention it gave my handwriting a sort of incoherent look. I'm trying to get rid of this habit, and it seems to be working. So far so good.

Now I'd like to go one step further and train myself not to lift the pen off the paper at all in the middle of a word. I'm trying to link all letters, to make each individual word look like a continuous piece of string (crosses, diacritics, etc. notwithstanding). After all, this is what cursive writing is all about, isn't it?

Some uppercase letters are not suited to this (e.g. T, P, F, etc.), so I guess there's nothing to be done there. But the capital letters aside, I find I can link almost all lowercase letters to one another. With one exception - lowercase q. I can link it to the previous letter, but not to the next.

 

Any tricks for that? How do you write a lowercase q so that you can link it to the next letter (like in the word aqua, for instance)?

 

[dragos.mocanu]

This should do the trick http://www.handwritingforkids.com/handwrite/cursive/animation/images/animationl_q00.gif

[TheRealScubaSteve]

Same principle as a p for me. I link my Ts as well. Q's too, but the pen is lifted after the O section.

 

[Vlad Soare]

I see. That's an interesting workaround, though it does resemble a lowercase g a bit too closely.

I've never thought about closing the loop. I'm used to these variants:

The first one is what I've learned from my parents, while the second one is how I was taught in school. Neither of them lends itself to a nice linkage to the next letter.

I guess I'll try your suggestion, though I do find the close resemblance to a g somewhat bothering.

 

 

Same principle as a p for me.

 

Not quite. A lowercase p ends on the baseline, where you can immediately start your next letter. It's perfectly suited for linking.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Vlad Soare

[TheRealScubaSteve]

Dragos' photo is basically how I write q, but the round bit is much more pronounced than mine.

 

Not quite. A lowercase p ends on the baseline, where you can immediately start your next letter. It's perfectly suited for linking.

 

My lowercase q is the same one that I learned in gradeschool. Slightly like a backwards p but with a different loop. As you can see from my below writing sample, both p and q end on the line. To the left, I've substituted p for q in "principle" to hopefully show this better.

 

Your first q is interesting - I've never seen it written like that before.

 

[DaveBj]

This should do the trick http://www.handwritingforkids.com/handwrite/cursive/animation/images/animationl_q00.gif

 

This is what I learned in grade school. We were also taught to complete the word without lifting the pencil (no pens allowed), and then to go back for dots and crosses.

[Randal6393]

Hi, Vlad,

 

Glad to see you working on cursive. Must differ with you on a few points. Cursive is joined, that is true. However, the idea of writing "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in one go is not correct. Cursives only look as if they are written in one go. The writer of cursive, like all writers, moves his hand and the paper every few letters to keep a proper relationship between the pen, the hand's position, and the eye. My teacher in Palmer handwriting stressed writing a word in one continuous line and almost ruined my handwriting. It was twenty years later that I discovered Italic handwriting and the concept of hand-lifts and repositioning of hand and paper.

 

So the true answer is not to link all letters, nor to write each letter individually. Instead, work for a harmonious blend that works for you.

 

Best of luck,

[Vlad Soare]

Thank you Randal. Indeed, when I said not to lift the pen in the middle of the word I didn't mean extremely long words, which require the hand to be moved. I will lift the pen off the paper when necessary; it's just that I'd like to reduce this "necessary" to the minimum possible.

.

[AllenG]

[Vlad Soare]

Say, that's a pretty neat idea. This way it won't get mistaken for a g. I like it, I'll give it a try.

Thank you.

[HalloweenHJB]

Say, that's a pretty neat idea. This way it won't get mistaken for a g. I like it, I'll give it a try.

Thank you.

 

 

[Jbloodwo]

Well here is some of my really bad writing. using a Franklin Cove with i chink a medium nib.. however the nib is unmarked and i don't have a micrometer to check.

 

as you can see, i don't attach capitals. i hate the "funky 2" so i don't use it. in fact i don think i attach most cap. letters in cursive.

 

Edited October 22, 2014 by Jbloodwo