Terrible Handwriting Into Beautiful Handwriting ?

[Rednaxela]

http://www.richimages.net/Penmanship/IMG_1457.JPG

Thanks so much for your kind comments, Rednaxela ...

So, one thing I've found about Spencerian, there are so many variations of Capitals ... In first post, those are simply my own versions of the capital letters. In fact, only recently have I started to practice a version of capital letters I like. My practice so far has only been on the lowercase letters.

 

I see, thanks. These are just lovely too!

 

Working on my handwriting myself, I'm also focussing on my lower case letters. In the mean time I'm thinking of landing on a 'new' set of majuscules, as I'm not entirely happy with the ones I was taught. What I liked about the ones (yours) I commented on was the combination of both elegance and simplicity, which I thought could be both practical and very nice to look at. In any case your samples are a great source of inspiration, please keep them coming!

 

http://www.richimages.net/Penmanship/IMG_1461.JPG

My apologies for the hopeless user name. You may have noticed it's my first name reversed. I'll soon add a proper signature to my FPN profile.

 

Best regards,

 

Alexander

[akustyk]

YES YOU CAN

I'm older than you and I relearned to write. I was disgusted at my old handwriting, and finally decided to do something about it. You don't have to reach the level of a master penman, but just to a level that you are satisfied with. Which for me was a pretty low bar, considering how bad my handwriting was. And I keep raising the bar as time goes on, looking for places to make my handwriting look better.

 

But as I mentioned in other posts, it takes dedication and practice, or said another way, the dedication to practice...everyday.

You don't need to do 3 hours a day, 30 minutes a day...everyday should do it. And stick in practice writing wherever and whenever you can; shopping list, notes, etc. The more you practice (correctly) the faster muscle memory will develop.

 

When I relearned, the biggest change was converting from finger writing to arm writing. For me, that was the hardest part of my relearning, and it was mainly building muscle memory. I had to train my arm and hand to do something that it never did before, and at a fine control level rather than a coarse level. It took 3 months of daily practice before I could ignore my arm, and it did what it was supposed to do. Until then I had to constantly check that I was not regressing back to finger writing. But it still took another several month before my handwriting got to the level that I was happy with it. Not great, but decently good.

 

Second was to relearn the shapes of the letters. I went back to traditional Palmer shapes for some letters, and I kept my personal styles for other letters. But I had to relearn the basics of writing the shapes. The Palmer excercises of writing loops will help train your muscles to move as they should. And to me, that is the key, retraining your muscles to move correctly.

 

Finally slow down. In my experience 'speed kills.' I write slowly and leisurely. The faster I write, the worse my handwriting gets, to the point that it is almost illegible. In fact, when I want to write fast, I sometimes switch to block printing, where I stand a much better chance of being able to read what I write.

 

One trick that I used was to write a journal. So my practice was not all loops, I wrote words. Probably did this sooner than I should have, but I was impatient. And that made practice more interesting for me. I could put the excercise practice into use. And as I wrote, I kept track of where I was "messing up" and want to fix something. Example transitioning from a 'w' to another letter has been a problem. I leave the 'w' at the x-height level and have to start the next letter at that level. Sometimes it looks OK, other times YUK. I still do this today.

 

ac12,

 

I appreciate your thoughts and encouragement! I agree that it's a matter of reaching your own bar, not becoming a master penman. I feel like I reached my bar with my current handwriting and that, from now on, it would be an exercise in futility. Yes, I could probably improve a tiny bit, but it would require a huge amount of work.

 

I feel like my failure was primarily related to arm movement, which you seem to have mastered in just three months. I did try it for a couple of weeks, but found it very hard. The movement itself is difficult, getting any legible characters with it is unattainable for me.

 

Sometimes I wonder if arm movement is necessary but successful accounts of its implementation, such as yours, seem to prove me wrong. I would love to see a video of someone using whole arm movement to write a business hand. I've seen it done in Copperplate and Spencerian, both with an oblique holder and mostly for flourishes. To me, everyday handwriting is a rather different enterprise, typically done in less than ideal conditions, casually, rapidly, and without deliberation. I cannot imagine myself doing it with my whole arm.

 

 

Below are two samples of handwriting:

 

the first image was of my best handwriting from July 4th of 2015; Below is a current sample as of Feb of 2016.

 

Basically seven months of concerted effort to improve. Fun the whole journey ...

 

http://richimages.net/Penmanship/IMG_1375.JPG

 

http://richimages.net/Penmanship/IMG_1374.PNG

 

 

I spend the $20.00 and bought the Spencerian Theory book, with the five copy books from Amazon. I started learning the lowercase letters - and retrained myself to only form them from the basic principle strokes ...

 

richiwalt,

Your penmanship is incredible! I have never seen anyone make so much progress in seven months, though your original sample already looks very good. It's also really interesting to see Spencerian done on a tablet. I am speechless.

[richiwalt]

 

richiwalt,

Your penmanship is incredible! I have never seen anyone make so much progress in seven months, though your original sample already looks very good. It's also really interesting to see Spencerian done on a tablet. I am speechless.

Akustyk

 

The tablet is convenient for practice for sure, and the accuracy of the results are very good with the Apple Pencil on the iPad Pro. I've customized the pressure curve in ProCreate as well as adjusted the pen settings to match the response of my fountain pens. Well, except my fountain pens do not have flex - so, I find the tablet allows that ability.

 

Thanks for your very kind comments - there are many here that feel you lose something with tablets over traditional. I tend to somewhat agree - in the way of being one layer removed from "maximum personalized" if it's printed. However, there are lots of time that I attach things handwritten in emails to family, or choose to text a handwritten image ... so, digital can have some advantages ...

 

I will say that no other stylus (or even Smart Pen - btw, the first sample was with a NeoLabs smart pen, back in July of 2015 - very shortly thereafter, I bought my first fountain pen and dropped smart pens like a rock) is as accurate to real movements beside the Apple Pencil. Even then, there are some fantastic apps - and some that do not work so well as far as accurate tracking.

 

I blog some about my penmanship journey at Richimages dot net.

 

Thanks again for the very kind comments.

 

- Richard.

Edited February 20, 2016 by richiwalt

[Inky.Fingers]

Richard, your Spencerian_ipad is salivating me to pick up my flexies again... just when i got a bit comfortable with my italics....

[richiwalt]

Richard, your Spencerian_ipad is salivating me to pick up my flexies again... just when i got a bit comfortable with my italics....

That's why I like about FPN ... Everyone inspires each other. Bring back that flex !! Envious of your italics skills though !

:-)

[tartuffo]

I wonder about my own ability to learn a skill that typically requires thousands of hours of work .....

 

......... I doubt that I ever will learn penmanship, realistically, .......................... I'd need to spend about twenty years to achieve the required level of proficiency,

 

 

I'm not sure what you mean by penmanship , akustyk

or what you would call the required level of proficiency

 

Sometimes we can be harder on ourselves than reality merits.

 

I'd say you have one of the most legible, functional and beautiful styles of handwriting I've seen on this forum .

 

For example ....

 

http://i.imgur.com/20BviiD.jpg

Edited February 22, 2016 by tartuffo

[LuckyKate]

I absolutely believe it is possible to improve your handwriting with a great deal of practice, if that is your priority. Many people here have done so and elevated handwriting to an art form.

 

That said, my personal experience is that writing a great deal and very fast tends to damage the handwriting one works so hard for. I've really enjoyed learning cursive italic and my handwriting is better than it used to be, but it has still somewhat devolved into a scrawl because it is just more than I can bear to focus on my handwriting while I am trying to focus on writing well.

[abdcolvinian]

I have had terrible handwriting all my school teachers were devastated by my handwriting I used to get even punished for my handwriting but now I sort of get compliments wherever I get to display my handwriting..

[Bergerac]

Below are two samples of handwriting:

 

the first image was of my best handwriting from July 4th of 2015; Below is a current sample as of Feb of 2016.

 

Basically seven months of concerted effort to improve. Fun the whole journey ...

 

http://richimages.net/Penmanship/IMG_1375.JPG

 

http://richimages.net/Penmanship/IMG_1374.PNG

 

 

I spend the $20.00 and bought the Spencerian Theory book, with the five copy books from Amazon. I started learning the lowercase letters - and retrained myself to only form them from the basic principle strokes ...

 

 

Wow, your writing is truly amazing, I love the fact that I can actually read every word. The way you've used the 2 inks to blend into the multi-coloured paper is wonderful!! I hope that oneday, my writing will resemble yours, even if it's just a little bit.

What type of paper have you used?

 

 

On a different note........ What has this forum done to me!? I've become a fountain pen / writing 'geek'!

[ac12]

 

 

ac12,

 

I appreciate your thoughts and encouragement! I agree that it's a matter of reaching your own bar, not becoming a master penman. I feel like I reached my bar with my current handwriting and that, from now on, it would be an exercise in futility. Yes, I could probably improve a tiny bit, but it would require a huge amount of work.

 

I feel like my failure was primarily related to arm movement, which you seem to have mastered in just three months. I did try it for a couple of weeks, but found it very hard. The movement itself is difficult, getting any legible characters with it is unattainable for me.

 

Sometimes I wonder if arm movement is necessary but successful accounts of its implementation, such as yours, seem to prove me wrong. I would love to see a video of someone using whole arm movement to write a business hand. I've seen it done in Copperplate and Spencerian, both with an oblique holder and mostly for flourishes. To me, everyday handwriting is a rather different enterprise, typically done in less than ideal conditions, casually, rapidly, and without deliberation. I cannot imagine myself doing it with my whole arm.

 

 

 

 

Arm movement is NOT necessary.

In my mind the biggest need for arm movement depends on the size of your writing.

IOW if you write in narrow ruled paper, like I did in college, you can get by just fine with hand and finger writing.

For me, it is the taller vertical strokes (like the lower case f) that benefit from the larger arc of motion that arm writing gives me. And I write on WIDE ruled paper, and use the entire vertical space between the lines, and my decenders go further down than standard.

 

Oh and I did not 'master' arm writing in 3 months. That was the time it took for me to have arm writing become natural, so I would write with my arm without having to pay attention that I was moving my arm and not regressing back to finger writing. And letter forms were not pretty. It required several more months of practice before I though my handwriting (with my arm) was up to that low bar that I was shooting for. And I have spend the 2 years since, constantly trying to improve my hand. And I sometimes have bad days/times when my writing looks like it went backwards; shaky, out of proportion, inconsistent, etc, etc. or just UGLY. Maybe it was that 2nd cup of coffee.

 

One thing that arm movement NEEDS is for your arm to be able to move your hand. Sometimes I have to put a piece of paper under the heel of my hand, so that my hand won't stick to the paper I am writing on.

 

The other thing that arm writing + a light grip gave me was endurance. In college after about 15-30 minutes of writing I would have to constantly shake my hand to keep them from cramping. This was with a TIGHT grip and finger writing. Today, with arm writing and a light grip, I am able to write almost continuously for 3 hours. There are 2 factors at work here; 1- the lighter grip eliminated a lot of hand tension, 2- the larger arm muscles don't get tired as fast as the smaller finger muscles.

 

In practice I do not write 100% arm, I write with a blend of methods; my arm, my hand, and my fingers. Small letters like lower case e, is easier to do with my fingers, taller letters like lower case f, is easier with my arm. But I try to use my arm as much as I can.

Edited May 30, 2016 by ac12

[EmilysFountainPens]

Beautiful handwriting samples! This is definitely something I am hoping to work on! I think I do better when I have paper with lines, unlined paper turns my handwriting into something completely different!

[FOUR X FOUR]

Did anyone here have that awful, chicken scratch handwriting--and were you able to make it beautiful through practice??

My handwriting has always been atrocious. Im just not sure my handwriting could ever look that great?

Short of having medical issues, yes, you're handwriting can look nice. Not just legible, but nice. It's as simple as technique and muscle memory; created through practise

[Bookman]

My penmanship was never chicken-scratch awful, Wile E., but I can attest that sloppy penmanship can be cured. I picked up a fountain pen in 2009 after a fourteen-year hiatus. The 2009 photo was my handwriting with a Pilot G2 gel pen. 2010: Pelikan M215. 2016: Edison Collier. Persistence pays off.

 

2009

 

 

 

2010

 

 

2016

 

 

 

[dkirchge]

While I would never call my cursive writing beautiful, it is legible and I keep trying to make it more consistent. I've recently started forcing myself to write everything in cursive just to regain some measure of skill. Switching to rollerballs and then later to fountain pens helped tremendously by taking away a lot of the physical strain of writing. I've been using ballpoints a lot lately and I can tell because my cursive went to (bleep) again. Time to retrain...

 

Side note: I'm always amused (and appalled) when my coworkers try to read the notes I leave myself on my cubicle whiteboard and say "Is that cursive? I can't read it..." I can't be so old that cursive is a lost art... can I?

[oneill]

Thanks for all the great responses!

 

Looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me.

The most important aid to good handwriting was and always will be the paper!!!

when I was at school we had this paper which was of three lines ie one on the

bottom another about half an inch higher the next just slightly more than a half

in inch above, this taught the person using a fountain pen how to write, or should I say the second line was placed where the top of a letter would be assisting the teacher who hovered over you with her cane and would give your knuckles a sharp

wrap if you did not keep within the lines,and yes I know this was in the middle

ages, but the result was amazing, have you ever seen old birth certificates, or

passports or some official documents like a Captains LOG, in most cases they are

in excellent cursive which the writer picked up in school, have a look at old

peoples knuckles !!!!!!

[ac12]

 

The most important aid to good handwriting was and always will be the paper!!!

when I was at school we had this paper which was of three lines ie one on the

bottom another about half an inch higher the next just slightly more than a half

in inch above, this taught the person using a fountain pen how to write, or should I say the second line was placed where the top of a letter would be assisting the teacher who hovered over you with her cane and would give your knuckles a sharp

wrap if you did not keep within the lines,and yes I know this was in the middle

ages, but the result was amazing, have you ever seen old birth certificates, or

passports or some official documents like a Captains LOG, in most cases they are

in excellent cursive which the writer picked up in school, have a look at old

peoples knuckles !!!!!!

 

 

When I write on BLANK paper I use a guidesheet under with the X-height line as you mentioned, to keep the height of the small lower case letters even. I'm generally OK without that middle line, but sometime I see that I am under or over. IOW, I am not yet good enough to solo without the X-height line. I was thinking about using NARROW ruled paper, then using 2 lines to write on, then I would have that X-height line. But try to find narrow ruled paper today...gud luk.

[Helen350]

I am always amazed & delighted at the beautiful handwriting I see on FPN. After approximately 30 yrs of working in healthcare, my handwriting is barely legible. I have given thought to learning Spencerian writing, however, at 69 yrs of age I wonder if the effort in practice would prove worthwhile. I am currently writing a commentary on the Book of Romans, and here is a small snap of my "Egyptian hieroglyphics".

 

[bobje]

Skipping a line of space between each of your written lines would put you most of the way there. This is lovely cursive.

[Rednaxela]

Helen, once I got how Spencerian letters are all constructed from a handful of basic strokes, I started to apply this to my own letters and I am quite amazed about the effect. My handwriting is now much cleaner and more consistent, though still very much 'my' handwriting. I'm convinced this can be picked up at 69, especially since many shapes are already there in your script.

 

Good luck!

[Helen350]

Bobje & Rednaxela - I thank you both for your words of encouragement.