Learning Spencerian...

[goring_shmith]

Take a piece of ruled paper and draw a horizontal line, making sure it is exactly in the middle of two baselines. Go slow, but as precisely as you can.

 

Then do the same thing, but in one swing of the arm. Try to stay in the middle again, but focus on speed and freedom of movement.

 

Even though the form will be off, the line quality of the latter will be much higher.

 

In my view, the challenge of Spencerian is to achieve the precision of the former, with the (technique and) line quality of the line.

 

I did not understand very well what you mean. Should I draw something like in the image below?

[Rednaxela]

Exactly. Maybe leave out the slant lines, to take away a possible source of distraction.

[goring_shmith]

Exactly. Maybe leave out the slant lines, to take away a possible source of distraction.

So your point is I should have a good control upon my arm movement, isn”t it?

[Rednaxela]

Eventually, yes indeed.

[goring_shmith]

Eventually, yes indeed.

Thank you.

[goring_shmith]

Take a piece of ruled paper and draw a horizontal line, making sure it is exactly in the middle of two baselines. Go slow, but as precisely as you can.

 

Then do the same thing, but in one swing of the arm. Try to stay in the middle again, but focus on speed and freedom of movement.

 

Even though the form will be off, the line quality of the latter will be much higher.

 

In my view, the challenge of Spencerian is to achieve the precision of the former, with the (technique and) line quality of the latter.

Are there any other drills for achieving a good control upon the arm movement?

[Rednaxela]

Basically every handwriting instruction book from the Golden Age of Penmanship starts with a drills section targeted at learning to control the arm muscles when writing. There are a lot of titles freely available at archive.org. Search on 'penmanship' and they should appear.

[aggieben]

Glad to see there are other people pursuing this - I've been wondering how I could connect with other people, and it looks like this might be the right place.

 

Naturally, I have bad habits formed across decades (I'm 37). The cursive that I learned as a child is legible, but it's not elegant and it's all based on hand/finger movements which is exhausting. I grip a pen like it's a dangerous animal that will bite me if it gets even a little bit loose.

 

I picked up the reprinted Spencer books, and I have a Lamy Safari EF to work with (as well as a couple cheap nib/holder combos) and have started on the first principle exercises, but I'm finding myself unsure about my grip and even more unsure about exactly how I'm supposed to execute the movements.

 

Some questions I have:

1. how much pressure should there be on my last two fingers as I hold my hand over the paper? Should those two fingers be the entirety of the support for my forearm, or should I be activating muscles in my upper arm to help suspend my forearm over the paper with the fourth and fifth fingers merely being there to stabilize? Should it be something in between?
2. Should I be up on my fingernails exclusively, or is it sufficient to rest on the little knuckle of those fingers?
3. How do I know how much finger movement to use as I practice the strokes? I find myself varying between exclusively finger or arm movements, and don't have a good frame of reference for how to mix the two.
4. How long / how much practice should it take me to be able to confidently make the prescribed marks on the paper (the principals, let alone actual letters)? I don't have a good feel for how to evaluate my progress.

 

Hopefully as I learn I'll have something to contribute to the thread besides questions :-)

[Rednaxela]

1. Do you pivot on the muscle pad in front of the elbow? Elbow off the table? In general there is very little pressure on the third and fourth finger, because any excess pressure will get in the way of freedom of movement. (Note BTW that in ancient handwriting theory, there is only the thumb and four fingers, no fifth finger.)

2. Preferably fingernails as they provide the smoothest contact points to glide on.

3. Start with no finger movement at all. Learn to write with a 'locked' hand. This is possible. When you have that down, bring back in the finger action to perfect the finer details in your script.

4. If you have the chance, work on movement and line quality first, then on form. You might want to wait with the Mott Media package as that method is very much geared towards form IMHO. In general, I think the business penmanship books are better at guiding you from movement into form. Also, only start a drill when you understand its purpose. Just drilling on is a waste of time and will very quickly take the fun out of the process.

 

Hope this answers some of your questions!

[aggieben]

1. Do you pivot on the muscle pad in front of the elbow? Elbow off the table? In general there is very little pressure on the third and fourth finger, because any excess pressure will get in the way of freedom of movement. (Note BTW that in ancient handwriting theory, there is only the thumb and four fingers, no fifth finger.)

2. Preferably fingernails as they provide the smoothest contact points to glide on.

3. Start with no finger movement at all. Learn to write with a 'locked' hand. This is possible. When you have that down, bring back in the finger action to perfect the finer details in your script.

4. If you have the chance, work on movement and line quality first, then on form. You might want to wait with the Mott Media package as that method is very much geared towards form IMHO. In general, I think the business penmanship books are better at guiding you from movement into form. Also, only start a drill when you understand its purpose. Just drilling on is a waste of time and will very quickly take the fun out of the process.

 

Hope this answers some of your questions!

 

Yep, that's quite helpful. I generally keep my elbow on the table; it would only ever not be on the table if I were in a position of haste, such as bending over a much lower surface to sign a check or standing at a bank counter. Otherwise, my elbow stays planted.

 

Thanks for clarifying about the finger numbering. I noticed in the theory books that the "third and fourth" fingers were repeatedly referenced, but it was confusing because clearly they were illustrating the position and use of the ring and pinky fingers, which I always though of as fourth and fifth. Now I understand :-)

 

Regarding line quality - thank you for that. In the couple of hours it took me to read through the rest of this thread (probably more than a couple hours if I'm counting honestly...) I gathered that the copy books may be a few weeks away yet for me. My control of the pen is pathetic - my lines are incredibly shaky and inconsistent. My next stop will be to find a good practice sheet or two. Sadly, most of the links in this thread to the IAMPETH site are broken, so I'll have to fish around there for a bit to find what I need, I think.

[Rednaxela]

Check out this book for some great arm movement theory and exercises.

 

https://archive.org/details/armmovementmetho00zane

 

Another good resource is the book by E.C. Mills:

 

https://archive.org/details/MillsModernBusinessPenmanship

 

There are more but these should be excellent starting points.

[Rednaxela]

P.S.: Check the third picture in this series to see what I meant by 'elbow off the table' a couple of posts ago.

 

https://instagram.com/p/BQ5l3XuloC4/

[aggieben]

Interesting.

I finally bought some laser printer paper on recommendation from a post much earlier in the thread, and I think it was a good idea. It's much smoother and considerably thicker than cheap copy paper or notebook paper. I finally also sat down and did a first real practice session. Let's just say I have a lot of opportunity in front of me ;-)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ60a3cgrIJ/
(@aggieben on insta and twitter)

 

http://i64.tinypic.com/2627cch.png

I also posted a pic of my grip too, in case I need to correct something there.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ6zO2MACn8/

[dunoion]

So your point is I should have a good control upon my arm movement, isn”t it?

Hi,I'm interested in talking to you about this topic here,I like your sample post it here ,please let me a message at dunoion@yahoo.com.

[goring_shmith]

Looking very good indeed goring_shmith, it certainly has the Spencerian look to it. Depending on your exemplar you could have a look at the stem of the p. It often starts and ends a bit higher. Another thing you could consider is to try to execute your strokes a bit more swiftly.

 

But, overall very nice!

I tried to follow your instructions.

What do you think about this one? Thank you.

[goring_shmith]

Looking very good indeed goring_shmith, it certainly has the Spencerian look to it. Depending on your exemplar you could have a look at the stem of the p. It often starts and ends a bit higher. Another thing you could consider is to try to execute your strokes a bit more swiftly.

 

But, overall very nice!

I tried to follow your instructions.

What do you think about this one? Thank you.

[Rednaxela]

Very nice! That O is such a beauty! How do you like writing this way?

[goring_shmith]

Very nice! That O is such a beauty! How do you like writing this way?

I feel so much freedom in my arm movement. It is a lot of space left for emprovements but I do feel that I start growing a little bit. For instance, the tail of last a in the first line I did it with my hand on the desk using my wrist movement wich was so frustrating to me at that moment.

[goring_shmith]

Some humble attempt in spencerian. What is your opinion? Thank you every one. Special many thanks to Rednaxela /Alexander for all his previous support.

[Rednaxela]

Beautifully written. Careful not to make the corner curves in your 'm' too sharp though. Another thing you could look at is your 'l', which seems to be done in the Copperplate style.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Rednaxela