Best Ways To Improve Handwriting?

[MYU]

Well, I've had to own up to it... that my handwriting isn't very good. It's legible, but it's not neat and consistent. I bought a stub nib that does shore it up a little, but "polish on a dent won't take the dent out." I'd like to improve upon it, since I have many fine pens to choose from.

 

But before I start looking into reading up on techniques, I'm wondering if it makes more sense to investigate videos? Because it's one thing to read about a technique versus seeing it first hand (as we all did when our teachers first showed us how to write). Also... is it a good idea to go back to single letter forming, and do this repeatedly before stepping up to writing words? Is there also a recommended "pace" in which to do this? Should it be a daily practice of a 10~30 minutes?

[ac12]

Gud Luk

I went thru that process a few years back, when I got disgusted at my handwriting.

I had to relearn how to write some of the letters. I still don't like the upper case Q, looks like a 2. So I stayed with an uppercase Q that looks like a Q. Similarly for my S.

You do have to practice letter form, especially if it is different than your current hand or your current hand is really bad.

 

I quickly got into journal writing, as it is less boring than drill and practice. I wrote 1-3 hours a day, though that is rather a lot. But that is what journal writing does, I just keep rambling on. I would say 20-30 minutes, and if you can do a second session; like one in the morning and another after dinner, that would be better.

 

You need to PAY ATTENTION as you write, so that you write like you want to, and not regress back to your old hand.

 

I used WIDE ruled notebooks, and a Fine nib. That way I could clearly see the ink line and what I did. A wide nib or narrow spacing between lines makes it easier to hide your mistakes.

Edited July 20, 2016 by ac12

[Rednaxela]

What type of script are you looking at? Print, cursive, italic...?

[MYU]

Thanks for your tips, ac10! Sounds very sensible to me.

 

Rednaxela, great question and I should have been more specific. I'd like to start with print and then delve into cursive. My cursive is not that bad, but I use print more often -- so I figure that it is better to start with that one.

 

I've started to look over a few on-line materials, but what I'm most curious to know is if there's a "sweet spot" on how much time is spent each day... where less than that and it's not productive. I'd like to do enough where it "takes" and I can build on it, without spending a lot of time (e.g. I don't have 1.5 hours a day to devote!). Merci!

[HanhPhuc]

MYU, in my experience with print, I've learned writing it how the alphabet "looks". For example, I would usually write alphabet as "ALPHABET" in all caps, but I've seen that it's time consuming.

 

Just write in lowercase and eventually you'll start to notice that you'll connect the letter without noticing it. At least that's how it works for me and that's what I noticed with a few of my classmates whom I've tried to help learn cursive.

 

For practice, of say maybe do 2-3 20 mins section throughout the day? Keeping a journal or such could help make it daily routine. That way you can see your handwring change as well

As a student, writing straight for anything longer than 30 mins get on most people's nerves. If you're enjoying it, you won't notice too much

[cellmatrix]

Thanks for your tips, ac10! Sounds very sensible to me.

 

Rednaxela, great question and I should have been more specific. I'd like to start with print and then delve into cursive. My cursive is not that bad, but I use print more often -- so I figure that it is better to start with that one.

 

I've started to look over a few on-line materials, but what I'm most curious to know is if there's a "sweet spot" on how much time is spent each day... where less than that and it's not productive. I'd like to do enough where it "takes" and I can build on it, without spending a lot of time (e.g. I don't have 1.5 hours a day to devote!). Merci!

 

If you want to develop a great print hand, I suggest "bookhand" as taught by James Pickering. If you know how to print, you can adapt to this very quickly and it looks quite nice.

http://jp29.org/bh.htm

 

If you want to go beyond that, try chancery italic, which is a natural extension of what you learn in bookhand. Pickering provides some great teaching on this subject.

http://jp29.org/itdr.htm

 

If you want to develop a great cursive hand, I suggest "Modern Business Penmanship" as taught by E.C. Mills. Its a very beautiful hand, and recommended by our local calligraphy expert "Caliken".

https://ia802205.us.archive.org/23/items/MillsModernBusinessPenmanship/Mills%20Modern%20Business%20Penmanship.pdf

 

If you want to go beyond that, the natural extension is Spencerian Writing. You can get the practice and theory books from Mott Media as one option. However, once you learn business penmanship, you already will have acquired much of what the Mott books would have taught you. As an alternative, one good way to progress to Spencerian once you have mastered business penmanship is through practicing the examples in "New Spenceriam Compendium".

 

https://ia802608.us.archive.org/34/items/NewSpencerianCompendium/New%20Spencerian%20Compendium.pdf

 

These are the sources which I have used over the past several years and they have served me well. I hope you find these resources useful too.

 

I recommend at least 30 minutes each day of focused practice. On the cursive hands of business penmanship and spencerian, its important right at the start to learn how to hold the pen, keep your hand and wrist off the table and learn to write more with your shoulder. For the printing variants of bookhand and italic, this is helpful but not nearly so essential.

 

Good luck!

[Sasha Royale]

I like the approach of careful practice, shaping each character as you wish it to appear. However, daily, devoted practice can become tedious. Write your grocery list in the same, careful way. Re-copy someone else's grocery list. Write notes and letters to friends and family. They will like it.

[sidthecat]

Do something a lot and you're very likely to get better at it. I got into the habit of writing summaries of TV shows as I watched them, which is also useful if you're learning how to write stories.

[ksm]

If you would like to put your stub to good use, then get Fred Eager's book. (The Italic Way to Beautiful Handwriting). Then practice.

 

Get the habit of keeping a journal.

I for example, in the end of each day, write down the things I've quarrelled with my wife about. This gives me a page or two of very repetitive handwriting exercise every evening.

[Rednaxela]

[akustyk]

Thanks for your tips, ac10! Sounds very sensible to me.

 

Rednaxela, great question and I should have been more specific. I'd like to start with print and then delve into cursive. My cursive is not that bad, but I use print more often -- so I figure that it is better to start with that one.

 

I've started to look over a few on-line materials, but what I'm most curious to know is if there's a "sweet spot" on how much time is spent each day... where less than that and it's not productive. I'd like to do enough where it "takes" and I can build on it, without spending a lot of time (e.g. I don't have 1.5 hours a day to devote!). Merci!

 

All great questions! You're likely to get a lot of great feedback from the awesome people at FPN. If you don't mind, my own thoughts, here they are.

 

In my opinion, trying to learn an entirely different handwriting style, such as cursive italic or Spencerian, in adulthood, given a lack of professional incentive and time constraints, is very difficult and, more importantly, will take a lot of time and practice to develop (think years). You can think of it as learning a new language or a new musical instrument.

 

My approach (it's not mine, really, but given to me by a few professional calligraphers) is to start with your own handwriting and simply improve consistency in forming letters, spacing, and slant. I say "simply" but there' s nothing simple about it. It will still take practice, but it's a much shorter route to beautiful handwriting. You don't need any books or videos for that. Books and videos would be very helpful for learning calligraphy or a new hand, but for improving your own, you just need practice. Some people call it "mindful practice." It's about paying attention to what you're writing, critically and analytically. Start with gross problems (e.g., slant), and gradually move to small problems (e.g., specific letter forms or strokes). That's all it takes, in my opinion.

 

As far as a sweet spot for time, I cannot help you there. My calligrapher friends work at least eight hours a day, but they make a living doing it. For the rest of us, you whatever free time you can spare, just do it every day, even if just for a few minutes.

[ac12]

You might also consider that you want at least THREE different hands, each for a different purpose.

#1 - a fast cursive, for quick notes. Speed, not legibility is the primary factor. As I write faster, my handwriting gets worse.

#2 - a slow and nice cursive. Here is where your 'nice' hand would be.

#3 - print.

 

IMHO, if the basic handwriting is not at least decent, a stub is of no value. You would just have a more interesting looking chicken-scratch.

[Rednaxela]

@Akustyk, I'm surprised that your calligrapher friends don't recommend to study as much as you practice.

 

With hindsight I can say that I've wasted several months of practice effort until I started to study handwriting methods.

[akustyk]

@Akustyk, I'm surprised that your calligrapher friends don't recommend to study as much as you practice.

 

With hindsight I can say that I've wasted several months of practice effort until I started to study handwriting methods.

 

I am sorry if I was using the words interchangeably. Strictly speaking, "study" is not the same as "practice." I guess "study" is more about analyzing forms, looking at one's handwriting critically, whereas "practice" perhaps means doing the actual writing. I hope that's more clear.

[Rednaxela]

Understood. However I could study my handwriting all day, but what in the end really improved it, were the insights I got from books and videos.

[pepsiplease69]

@MYU

Hello, I hope you are doing well.

 

I was going to chime in and say that different approaches work for different people. I tried the books and videos but never had the discipline to follow through. My cursive was highly embarrassing at the time.

 

Then I took a hands on class with Michael Sull on American Cursive and it did wonders for my writing. I felt an interactive classroom setting with an excellent teacher like Mr Sull could do wonders.

 

A lot of practice and paying close attention to the letter forms went into it after I took that 1 hr class at the SF Pen show in 2015.

 

My writing is much more improved but nowhere near perfect at this time. I submit scans of it occasionally to get some helpful pointers from the community. That's another good way to leverage the enormous talent here on FPN.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/313300-critique-my-cursive/page-1

[akustyk]

Understood. However I could study my handwriting all day, but what in the end really improved it, were the insights I got from books and videos.

 

I found a suitable quote in an old penmanship book, and it explains the difference between "study" and "practice" better than I ever could

 

[moylek]

My handwriting was abysmal from the age of two to forty two - with hardly any improvement between my earliest and latest samples (except the former was print, not cursive

 

What did not work for me: trying to slow down; trying to keep my slant more even; writing smaller; writing larger.

 

What finally worked was learning a new hand from scratch: cursive italic. In particular, I used Write Now by Getty and Dubay. Here's the result after about four years, during which time my hand has drifted from the model and become sloppier but my own.

 

 

My handwriting is not beautiful now but it is legible and presentable.

Edited October 3, 2016 by KennethMoyle

[vjones]

I'm not sure anyone can say what the "best way" is for you since we're all different. What worked for me was choosing a particular method I liked and taking it slow. I found italic was appealing and I used a book called "Write Now" by Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay to learn it (just like the poster above). They start with printing basic letter-forms, then cover the joins for cursive.

 

After working through the book over the course of months, my handwriting looked great (as long as I wrote slowly) Then I slid back. Later I did a review and now my handwriting is acceptable, even at moderate speeds. I know it could be better, but when I recently returned to college people remarked that my handwriting was legible and sometimes even aaid that it was nice. That's a big change for me. (This is years after initially trying to fix my handwriting, with periodic reviews.)

 

I still see flaws in my writing and it may never be beautiful, but I'm pretty happy with the results. It does seem that it has taken years in my case. I plan to continue working on it.

Edited October 2, 2016 by vjones

[vjones]

My handwriting was abysmal from the age of two to forty two - with hardly any improvement between my earliest and latest samples (except the former was print, not cursive

 

What did not work for me: trying to slow down; trying to keep my slant more even; writing smaller; writing larger.

 

What finally worked was learning a new hand from scratch: cursive italic. In particular, I used Write Now by Getty and Dubay. Here's the result after about four years, during which time my hand has drifted from the model and become a sloppier but my own.

 

 

My handwriting is not beautiful now but it is legible and presentable.

 

I used the same book and my experience is very similar. I plan to do another review especially of cursive since I never completely mastered it.