Learning Spencerian...

[MusinkMan]

For some reason, I can't execute as well as I did about a week ago.

 

Here is a sample of the finest so-called letter I have written thus far. This is the product of around 20 months of practice since I started in this hobby. Personally, I think its okay, but its worth it to post progress on script. There are various errors all over the place in this letter in my mind, but the consistency in the letter is what makes it my personal best.

 

Executed with an Esterbrook 356 in a contoured vintage holder. The ink is a handmade higgins-walnut ink mixture diluted down to about 40%. I find that using only arm movement produces the best and wobble-free lines. When doing my penmanship, I use no finger movement whatsoever. When I really did lose most of my finger movement, my penmanship greatly improved.

 

http://i.imgur.com/EFyqbMZ.jpg

Nice!!!

[Mickey]

Liking this a little better...getting the line weight down a bit.

 

Very good, much improved. You're really starting to get the flavor. As Musinkman points out, the shades need to start later on the principle stems. The reason for this may not be immediately clear. It's not just a matter of style. It's (probably) more about slant. Early shades make the letters appear too upright. Thus any early shaded letter will not agree in slant with the rest of the word or line. Put a protractor on it all day, but the naked, Mark I eyeball will tell the viewer it's too upright, the slants don't agree. This particularly damaging when the apparent slant of the rest of the letter elements agree, both with themselves and with the rest of the letters in the word. The shade in the letter below is fairly correct. (Please pardon the sketchy line.)

 

 

Notice that if a line were drawn between the start of the shade and it's release, it would agree with the overall slant of the letter (and hopefully the rest of the word and line of which it is a part).

 

Ink is weight on the page and weight of ink is an important consideration in Spencerian. Just like in architecture, misplaced weight will imbalance the structure.

 

Three more very little things:

 

1) Be careful with the wedges. Weight of ink can make them apparently fall out of slant. They don't need to be on slant so much as appear to be on slant. Be careful also that they don't start too high (the 'l height' should be quite distinctly different) nor should they be so wet as to 'spill' ink out of their bottoms. (Please excuse the funky image and syllepsis.)

 

2) Be stingy with x-height shades, as on the right leg of the m, n, h. Less is more. Hinting at a shade is much better than an indistinct blob. A hint urges the eye forward, a blob stops it.

 

3) Be care that the right leg of the minuscule 's' does not get heavy. (This is not particularly easy to accomplish.) There is an old trick which can help. Don't close the bottom of the s. This is often enough by itself, but if you miss closure in this letter, suggest it by adding a tiny touch of ink (smaller than the dotting of an i) where the closure would have been. The eye of the viewer will fill in the gap. Again, weight of ink is like optical magnetism, drawing the eye to where it is. (The slant of 's' is particularly troublesome in Spencerian, as it is often the result of a 'negotiation' between the apparent slant of it's two legs. Remembering that the left leg should be a shallow s curve laid on top of the slant line will help. )

Edited October 16, 2014 by Mickey

[Cryptos]

I've been following this thread and I feel a bit sheepish about asking a question as I am a total beginner at this. Anyway, embarrassment aside, a few posts up Mickey said something about learning where to shade in Spencerian script. Without having to wade through all the old document on IAMPETH could someone tell me if this is a rule about where to shade or an experiential understanding?

 

Does that make sense?

[Mickey]

It's kind of like jazz: there is lots of room for personal expression, but also plenty of do and don't. Unfortunately there is no simple 'i before e, except after c'* rule to tell you where and where not to shade. The way most of us learn - using copy books and copying exemplars from the 'Golden Age' penmen - embeds the rules experientially. Performing the standard exercises, particularly those in http://www.iampeth.com/books/bloser/bloser_index.php will pretty much tattoo the rules on your nervous system. I believe this is the best way. So, I guess the most honest answer is that you do need to wade through some of those musty old books, but the journey needn't be painful. Take one page a day from the Bloser book and make that the focus of your daily warm up. Eventually, you'll understand the rules (or at least your eyes and arm will). Probably the single most important single rule is 'when in doubt, don't shade.'

 

Remember, shading is not just decoration. It should direct the reader's eyes. If there are too many directions, content gets fractured and ultimately ignored.

 

 

* part of a spelling mnemonic taught to school children in the U.S. Even in its more complete form

 

i before e,
except after c,
or when sounded as a,
as in neighbor and weigh

 

there are plenty of common exceptions, e.g., science, species, height. Sometime you just can't avoid memorizing.

Edited October 18, 2014 by Mickey

[Skagit]

Performing the standard exercises, particularly those in http://www.iampeth.com/books/bloser/bloser_index.php will pretty much tattoo the rules on your nervous system.

 

That's good material...I'd never seen that one before.

 

Thanks too for the encouragement and advice. It help get me off the plateau.

[Cryptos]

Thanks again Mickey. I'll grab a pdf of that book and get to work. Still using a straight holder though. I hope that doesn't detract too much from the experience - at least as far as getting used to basics.

[Mickey]

Thanks again Mickey. I'll grab a pdf of that book and get to work. Still using a straight holder though. I hope that doesn't detract too much from the experience - at least as far as getting used to basics.

 

An oblique holder makes a huge difference, unless you are interested omitting shades and a writing business hand. You can write shaded Spencerian with a straight holder if you are a.) a left hand underwriter b.) willing to turn your paper such that the writing line runs away from your body. Even so, you sacrifice the advantage of the lower pen angle afforded by an oblique holder with an adjustable flange. Get an oblique holder if you are at all serious about Spencerian. In my opinion, you are better off learning the basics with a pencil than with a straight holder.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Mickey

[caliken]

 

An oblique holder makes a huge difference, unless you are interested omitting shades and a writing business hand. You can write shaded Spencerian with a straight holder if you are a.) a left hand underwriter b.) willing to turn your paper such that the writing line runs away from your body. Even so, you sacrifice the advantage of the lower pen angle afforded by an oblique holder with an adjustable flange. Get an oblique holder if you are at all serious about Spencerian. In my opinion, you are better off learning the basics with a pencil than with a straight holder.

+1

[Cryptos]

I feel as if I just had my wrist slapped!

 

Yesterday I began practicing with a pencil. Been thinking about doing so for a while. I will put an order in for a Zanerian just as soon as I can arrange the funds.

[MusinkMan]

+1

Hey there Ken!

[Iso*]

Cryptos,

As for shading, I believe I am fairly familiarised when it comes to shading...

Firstly, you should know that every letter in ornamental penmanship can be shaded.

BUT

Not every letter should be shaded.

 

According to PZ Bloser's text (Lessons in O.P., 1948), he recommends that not more than every letter should be shaded.

 

Shading should be in accord with how you want to embellish or present the piece as a whole. You should know early on that shades tend to be a sort of speed-bump for the eye. Shades make the eye notice something because of the contrast it creates with neighbouring hairlines. Thus, for free-flowing, easy-reading pieces, little to no shades will be used. For more dramatic, epic-looking works, heavier shades will be used; such is the case with Madarasz-styled embellished pages.

 

Generally however, you will want your shades to be evenly spaced out on the page, so as to create balance and flow in the page. But sometimes, it may be worthy to highlight a single word or phrase in the work. Shading, thus has its utility. For most words, you won't really find more than four shades in a single word. Or so I think. I am unsure because there really is no formal convention for shading - since its such an individualised aspect of ornamental penmanship. You can shade lightly, or heavily. There are masters that use only light shades, others who shade heavily, and yet others who utilise both brilliantly.

 

Overall, just remember to think before you place a shade. Learning to place shades for greatest effect is not necessarily in the weight of the shade, but rather its position in the word, the line, and the page overall. I feel that the master penmen of the past had a such a mastery over their script, that placing shades was nearly automatic, properly varied in position, weight, and balance. For myself, I tend to still focus on each letter and word individually too much - I can't pen each letter reflexively yet, so I don't have the capacity to think about shade placement. I think it will be an interesting skill to master.

[Mickey]

Cryptos,

 

As for shading, I believe I am fairly familiarised when it comes to shading...

 

Firstly, you should know that every letter in ornamental penmanship can be shaded.

BUT

Not every letter should be shaded.

 

According to PZ Bloser's text (Lessons in O.P., 1948), he recommends that not more than every letter should be shaded.

 

 

I assume you meant "not more than every other letter should be shaded." Even that is excessive, in my opinion, and even a cursory survey of the work from the 'golden age' suggests the great penmen mostly agreed. As the frequency of shading rises, the results become increasingly Copperplate-like (regular) making the individual shade less and less a well reasoned consideration.

 

You also seem to be treating Spencerian and OP as synonymous. Real correspondences written in Spencerian (for example) are not audition pieces (often in letter form) penned in OP.* The authentically written page is not designed in advance, and the role of shading is more one of local emphasis than over all aesthetic. For that reason, your speed bump analogy is suspect unless shading is excessive. Used sparingly, shades pull the eye from point of emphasis to point of emphasis, modulating reading tempo. Used excessively and regularly, shades do act like speed bumps, they set reading speed (slow), ergo my call for true restraint, not numeric limitation, as a first principle. I believe it's best to defer shading of any letters other than majuscules and a very few minuscules until one is writing sentences not penning individual words.

 

Here's my rule of thumb: If you don't know where the next period, comma, colon, etc. is going to be, don't make an optional shade, i.e., any shade not required to unambiguously identify the letter.

 

 

 

* A lot of the letters one sees on the IAMPETH site and in collections are more like advertising materials or audition pieces than actual correspondence.

Edited October 18, 2014 by Mickey

[Skagit]

 

Here's my rule of thumb: If you don't know where the next period, comma, colon, etc. is going to be, don't make an optional shade, i.e., any shade not required to unambiguously identify the letter.

 

 

Please elaborate. What is the rule of thumb, then , if you do know where the next punctuation is? How do the shade and the punctuation interact visually?

 

I'm interested because I intend my writing to be primarily for correspondence.

[Mickey]

 

Please elaborate. What is the rule of thumb, then , if you do know where the next punctuation is? How do the shade and the punctuation interact visually?

 

I'm interested because I intend my writing to be primarily for correspondence.

 

The goal should be to draw attention to important words or concepts within the sentence or clause. Shades can do that. The eye will be drawn to the shade, thus making subtle emphasis, much in the way one might underline or embolden with a keyboard. Unless one does draft versions of letters, one is going to be composing at the clause, sentence and possibly paragraph scale of thought. My reference to punctuation was strictly as logical delimiters, not as visual elements. Describing or decorating the page can only be roughly done in a spontaneous letter - using emphases in the boiler plate to frame the page.

 

Shades can even be used to indicate pronunciation, for example in Zanerian. Lightly shading the right leg of the n causes the eye to pause there briefly, indicating the accent on the following syllable - Zan er i an. In contrast, with animate, shading the a and m and not the n puts the primary and secondary accents where they belong. Putting shades on the a, n, and m, produces three equally weighted syllables, which would most often be inapt.* So shading, at its best, reinforces the natural rhythms of the words. Done inartifully, shading can fight the scansion, disrupting the reading experience.

 

* On the other hand, if rhyming 'animate' with 'came too late' in a limerick, suggesting 3 equal weighted syllables might be just what you need to hammer home the punch line.

Edited October 19, 2014 by Mickey

[MusinkMan]

 

The goal should be to draw attention to important words or concepts within the sentence or clause. Shades can do that. The eye will be drawn to the shade, thus making subtle emphasis, much in the way one might underline or embolden with a keyboard. Unless one does draft versions of letters, one is going to be composing at the clause, sentence and possibly paragraph scale of thought. My reference to punctuation was strictly as logical delimiters, not as visual elements. Describing or decorating the page can only be roughly done in a spontaneous letter - using emphases in the boiler plate to frame the page.

 

Shades can even be used to indicate pronunciation, for example in Zanerian. Lightly shading the right leg of the n cause the eye to pause there briefly, indicating the accent on the following syllable - Zan er i an. In contrast, with animate, shading the a and m and not the n puts the primary and secondary accents where they belong. Putting shades on the a, n, and m, produces three equally weighted syllables, which would most often be inapt. So shading, at its best, reinforces the natural rhythms of the words. Done inartifully, shading can fight the scansion, disrupting the reading experience.

I agree totally, Mickey! Everything I have read and been told by "those who know" agrees with what you are saying. We were recently taught (by Harvest Crittenden in her awesome online course) that when Platt Spencer developed the Spencerian, he very much intended it to become a "personalized" hand. That is why in it's purest form, there is almost zero shading of letters. Mr. Spencer had decided on a very few specific letters that he wanted a tad of shading, but the rest were all thin monoline. Almost exclusively monoline in fact (talking about lowercase here). This left "room" for individuality and personal expression, and it worked. Works penned by Spencerian masters of the Golden Age can usually be "recognized" and attributed to the penman, even though the work is very much Spencerian at its roots. It is a wonderful expressive form of writing in my opinion, and I marvel at the old works of those great men. And of course we have our contemporaries who are just as amazing, our friend Ken Fraser being in the vanguard of course! According to Harvest, the Ornamental Penmanship evolved "on it's own" from Spencerian roots. As great writing masters took the style and applied their own little twists and turns to it, a sort of "friendly competition" seemed to develop between them; and a downright rivalry in some cases. Master writers "pushed the limits" and pushed each other, each trying to outdo the other guy. I found this so interesting...the fact that "Ornamental Penmanship" isn't really a specific technical memorization of letterform as much as it is a spontaneous on-the-spot tasteful flourishing, executed with balance as well as panache. Emphasis placed on different words by placing just the right shading on various elements of the letters, or by a little whippy flourish. I also agree with Mickey that this must be done judiciously and cautiously, especially by us amateurs. It's definitely a case where "less is more". Also...execution on such flourishes should be done proficiently. Things can become very amateurish in a hurry with "too much stuff", and especially if the "stuff" is not executed well. Having said that, we all fall prey to the beast and we all produce garbage (I do it every single day). But that's ok...we are learning. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. We have to try, and fail, and listen to the critique of those who know...and try again. Heck, F.B.Courtney himself was a beginner at one time. So don't be afraid to try and fail...but also be open to critique and errors as they are pointed out. It is the way to becoming a great penman!

[Mickey]

I agree totally, Mickey! Everything I have read and been told by "those who know" agrees with what you are saying. We were recently taught (by Harvest Crittenden in her awesome online course) that when Platt Spencer developed the Spencerian, he very much intended it to become a "personalized" hand. That is why in it's purest form, there is almost zero shading of letters. Mr. Spencer had decided on a very few specific letters that he wanted a tad of shading, but the rest were all thin monoline. Almost exclusively monoline in fact (talking about lowercase here). This left "room" for individuality and personal expression, and it worked. Works penned by Spencerian masters of the Golden Age can usually be "recognized" and attributed to the penman, even though the work is very much Spencerian at its roots. It is a wonderful expressive form of writing in my opinion, and I marvel at the old works of those great men. And of course we have our contemporaries who are just as amazing, our friend Ken Fraser being in the vanguard of course! According to Harvest, the Ornamental Penmanship evolved "on it's own" from Spencerian roots. As great writing masters took the style and applied their own little twists and turns to it, a sort of "friendly competition" seemed to develop between them; and a downright rivalry in some cases. Master writers "pushed the limits" and pushed each other, each trying to outdo the other guy. I found this so interesting...the fact that "Ornamental Penmanship" isn't really a specific technical memorization of letterform as much as it is a spontaneous on-the-spot tasteful flourishing, executed with balance as well as panache. Emphasis placed on different words by placing just the right shading on various elements of the letters, or by a little whippy flourish. I also agree with Mickey that this must be done judiciously and cautiously, especially by us amateurs. It's definitely a case where "less is more". Also...execution on such flourishes should be done proficiently. Things can become very amateurish in a hurry with "too much stuff", and especially if the "stuff" is not executed well. Having said that, we all fall prey to the beast and we all produce garbage (I do it every single day). But that's ok...we are learning. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. We have to try, and fail, and listen to the critique of those who know...and try again. Heck, F.B.Courtney himself was a beginner at one time. So don't be afraid to try and fail...but also be open to critique and errors as they are pointed out. It is the way to becoming a great penman!

 

Absolutely! One needs to concentrate on monoline first, learn core Spencerian, but all work and no play makes Platt a very dull boy. Sometimes you've just gotta sling a little ink.

[Iso*]

A few things - I guess you do have a point, Mickey. I just feel that some of the shades are so well placed that I do get kind of carried away with fringe theories. Oh and yes, that was a typo. Uhehe...

I try to use shades rather sparingly, monoline mostly, then shades afterwards. I can agree strongly with that; most penmanship courses do not even allow the use of the flexible point until the student has mastery of monoline, i.e. business hand. Movement first! Shade afterwards.

As a side note-quote, but yes. F.B. Courtney was once an aspiring penman. The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried. Over many moons, I find that consistent practice as well as a strong sense of patience was necessary to improve.

[Uncial]

I was taught cursive in school, but I would like to try and learn Spencerian so I just bought the workbooks and the guide. I hope they arrive soon, I'm actually looking forward to learning this hand. I've come a little late to this thread; hope that is alright. My handwriting was once good (even if I do say so myself!), but over the years it has seriously deteriorated. I have some of the poor habits already mentioned by others, such as finishing each letter fully before moving on to the next which gives he hand a horrible disjointed look. For the last month I have been working on correcting that and really looking carefully at how I form my letters. I've also noticed that my lowercase 'e's' are particularly awful and my 'v's' are inconsistent, but it's getting there.

 

There are many people here with truly wonderful handwriting, but I fear mine is fairly woeful now. Hopefully in time I will begin to notice a significant change.

[Elle Dechene]

Hello everyone, I am new to pretty handwriting, mine is a very devolved form of rapid note taking. I've read through this entire thread, a journey in itself. All of these wonderful examples of Spencerian script have motivated me to obtain the proper materials and to practice to achieve something that my kitchen renovator can actually decipher. (He found one of my sticky notes on walls with directions on placement and type of wall switch ever so funny, thankyouverymuch.)

 

Right now I'm in soak-it-all-up-like-a-sponge-and-practice-practice-practice mode. Not quite ready to post anything.

 

Thank you everyone for sharing your expertise, links, and beautiful Spencerian handwritings.

 

Best,

Elle

[Uncial]

I finished book one! I feel like I need a gold star, but some of it is a bit messy.