Cursive Lowercase "r"

[FLZapped]

While I know they should look like the #2, when I get in a hurry, they usually turn out like little mounds......

[iveyman]

Image #1 is how I write lower case "r". I learnt cursive & calligraphic handwriting from Fred Eager's book, "The Italic Way to Beautiful Handwriting". Once learnt to write one way, it is hard to change to write in another way. You can say I am stuck with writing Image #1.

[Runnin_Ute]

mostly like #2, but in some positions I will use a capital R - even if a lower case is called for. Very rarely will I use #1 - it has been years since I even PRINTED a lower case r like that,regardless of its position in a word. Now #2 sometimes just looks like a bump, but hey stuff happens sometimes.

[Harlequin]

With the cursive r the nuns taught me so thoroughly so many years (decades?) ago, r's and v's are often mistaken for each other!

I also find that it gets hard to differentiate between my n's as well.

 

 

 

[Oeufdepoire]

This damned letter, with the v and the s, is the harder to me to form correctly and, mainly, with regularity. I never managed to align two r that look the same... In spite of the fact I'm trying hard : here's what I ended up with yesterday, after "watching" Sleepy hollow :

[RMN]

I voted options 2 and 4. Using the second r in the OP's list mostly, but sometimes at the beginning of a word with the little loop as a flourish/embellishment as described first by Mickey.

 

Or: example 3 and 5 by Caliken.

 

 

D.ick

[mberman14]

When in school I was taught that consistency is essential in handwriting, but as I have gotten older, I have found myself drifting into changing letter forms, often within a single sentence. I not only do this with r, but also with s, b, d, e, k, l, p, q, t, v, and w. I don't really give it much thought in the moment, but sometimes one or the other letterform just feels right. It doesn't seem to impact the legibility. It may be because my writing is a sort of hybrid of palmer, italic, and spencerian influences, learned at different times in my life.

 

Anyway, this is a vote for inconsistency.

Edited January 12, 2013 by mberman14

[TSherbs]

#1

 

And I am too embarrassed by my handwriting to post it. :embarrassed_smile:

[ShinyDemon]

This is very interesting because I've always found the cursive r (option 2) to be problematic. I prefer it, but if it joins from a letter that starts above the line, then the beginning of the r is also above the line. Consider the combination "br" or better still the word "Or" with capitalised O.

[notbob]

Here are five letters 'r' which are currently in fairly common use.

 

From left to right they are :-

 

English Roundhand (Copperplate)

Engrosser's Script

Spencerian Script

Italic

Alternative English Roundhand (Copperplate)

 

 

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/fivelettersr600.jpg

 

Thanks for that, Ken.

 

I originally learned that spencerian r, then later, mr ink's no. 2 r. Finally, it devolved into an even worse scratcher scrawl.

 

Now that I'm all FP'enified and trying to relearn good penmanship, I took a cue from mhphoto and am back to using your classic spencerian r when writing with a flex pen. It looks so much nicer. Italic requires the italic r, of course.

 

I've never understood --or been able to decipher-- gawain3's nun's r. What is it!? An x? A v? An n? The last thing I would guess in an r. Only by its context in the word can one even imagine. Too often, I've guessed incorrectly.

[LostInBrittany]

Here are five letters 'r' which are currently in fairly common use.

 

From left to right they are :-

 

English Roundhand (Copperplate)

Engrosser's Script

Spencerian Script

Italic

Alternative English Roundhand (Copperplate)

 

caliken

 

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/fivelettersr600.jpg

 

Thanks a lot for the image!

 

When I write slowly, mine is like your Alternative English Roundhand, when I write quickly... here you have a sample of that :

 

http://libpens.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/quick.jpg

[thang1thang2]

That's a rather thick nib with a lot of bleeding in your ink, Lost. Have you tried using a thinner nib and a less saturated ink? You might be surprised at the legibility increase.

[LostInBrittany]

That's a rather thick nib with a lot of bleeding in your ink, Lost. Have you tried using a thinner nib and a less saturated ink? You might be surprised at the legibility increase.

 

If you were talking about my writing sample, it wasn't intended to be shown in Penmanship forum, it's a sample taken from my last ink review, done on cheap paper and written quickly. As I had the scan of the review just on the computer, I cut and pasted a sample here :embarrassed_smile:

[inkstainedruth]

Interesting thread.

I haven't voted yet, but that's because I'm just now in the process of trying to write in cursive after a 35+ year hiatus (I pretty much started printing everything in college, and maybe even back to high school). I also wanted to read over the entire thread to see the various options and the general discussion.

I would probably vote #2. My "r"s are not nearly as well-formed as Calikan's Spenserian, and closer in shape to his Alternative English Roundhand/Copperplate (but without the loop -- although for some reason I seem to vaguely recall having learned that at some point in elementary school).

When I print, they look a lot like gawain3's (?) "r" vs. "v" issues, especially if I'm writing fast.

I rather like the look of the uppercase/ligature one -- the first version that HDoug posted of the word "origin" -- but have never seen it anywhere else before. I think it's partly my old graphic arts/typography training, and partly because it looks a bit like the old Anglo-Saxon "yough" -- I've been reading facsimiles of medieval texts recently, and the closest way I can transcribe it is to use a (subscript) "3" when I'm keyboarding, because while I can get some interesting alternative letters (such as the Æ form of "asch") the "yough" isn't one of them.... :bonk:

Which is making me think of the old Dr. Suess book _On Beyond Zebra_ now....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[thang1thang2]

 

If you were talking about my writing sample, it wasn't intended to be shown in Penmanship forum, it's a sample taken from my last ink review, done on cheap paper and written quickly. As I had the scan of the review just on the computer, I cut and pasted a sample here :embarrassed_smile:

 

Yup! I was talking about that. It's alright, though, I liked it all the same.

[raigne]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v517/raigne/2013-01-28020041sized_zps7e63a2bc.jpg

The only thing consistent about my r's is that they're lower case and have ligatures on both sides.

[exdevlin]

I chose option (1)!

 

I was taught to use (2), but it never looked nice, so I went back to using the hook instead.

 

jbb: I love your cursive r's! Perhaps I shall try using a faint loop on the first upstroke as well!

[Pinkys.Brain]

Normally English Roundhand (Copperplate). That's how I learned it in German grammar school.

[Annk]

[NeelsK]

I voted for option/image 2 because that's what I use most often. However, option 1 occasionally sneaks in, particularly at the end of a word.

HA!! And here I thought I was the only one that happened to