Penmanship For A Beginner

[patrickfp]

Most of my books come from either Amazon, eBay or AbeBooks. The latter can be very handy for out of print books. Sometimes they are cheap, but sometimes they are not. It's up to the buyer to decide whether the price is worth it as usual. I have been burned a few times because the books were not what I thought they would be in terms of instructions, but "Italic Handwriting" is one of those that I cherish and will protect :-)

 

 

TheModernGent: If this may help, one of my favourite activities when I started was to have the TV in the background, and then to write words that I was hearing.

 

A piece of advice given to me by a local calligrapher which I wish I knew right at the start: keep your written papers and date them. You'll see progress over time.

Edited April 18, 2014 by patrickfp

[Tasmith]

TheModernGent: If this may help, one of my favourite activities when I started was to have the TV in the background, and then to write words that I was hearing.

I do the same listening to the radio by writing down the artist and song titles in italic.

[theverdictis]

I definitely need to work on my height of writing lets me down most of the time

 

Ben

[cellmatrix]

I second/third/?fourth the recommendation for "write now" by Getty and Dubay, best introduction to cursive italic that I have seen.

[TheModernGent]

Thanks for all the advice, tips and tricks.

 

I'll definitely have to pick up "Write Now" and practice, practice, practice.

 

Thanks for the tip Patrick on saving all my papers and dating them so I can map my progress, I will definitely do that

[FayeV]

This is a great post as I am also in need of improving my handwriting. I will have to seek out Write Now. I did a Google search for that and came across a link to this other older FPN post which lists some of the same resources already mentioned above, plus maybe a few others:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/22931-books-on-italic-handwriting-and-calligraphy/

 

I'd like to improve my everyday handwriting, not necessarily beginning with calligraphy.

My problem is wanting to write quickly, but then everything looks like chicken scratch.

[TheModernGent]

 

I'd like to improve my everyday handwriting, not necessarily beginning with calligraphy.

My problem is wanting to write quickly, but then everything looks like chicken scratch.

Same

[Tasmith]

Same

Same here. Want to improve my hand writing so I can hand letter envelopes and thank you cards to family, friends and clients. The computer printed ones just look too run of the mill and impersonal. I've been doing the lessons in Fred Eager's, The Italic Way to Beautiful Handwriting and reading Margaret Shepherd's, Learn Calligraphy. Just ordered and received Ken Fraser's book, Italic Variants, and his DVD, Calligraphy by Ken Fraser. The DVD is great as Ken explains the process as he writes the letters. Being able to see the subtleties of his hand writing the letters is something that books alone just can't teach.

[wallylynn]

And yes, write slowly, concentrating on the flow and the angles and the height of each letter. Also, take a page and practice writing each letter over and over and over until they all look the same, both upper and lower case.

 

 

 

Ditto. It's very important that you constantly critique yourself (which is different from criticizing). It does no good if you practice bad form over and over. You have to strive and make the effort to improve. 5 minutes of dedicated effort is better than an hour of mindless rote.

 

I know you're not practicing cursive, but I still like to point people to:

http://www.paperpenalia.com/handwriting.html