The Perfect Page.

[Rroberrt]

I wrote a perfect word yesterday.  Well, it was actually an abbreviation, and a little feathered, but to my eye a thing of beauty.

Imagine. The Grail - a page of beautiful writing, created by me.  

Like a beautiful painting by one who could never paint.  

Or a serene drawing by one who could never draw.  

A sea of charming hand-writing - by one who never could.

 

I must try your patience (if you are reading this blether), and bow out for an hour. My wife has a zoom mtg scheduled that requires my iPad. (She has her own but….)  Will finish later.

[Rroberrt]

Sorry about that.

 

Maybe not such a good idea - but there is such a wealth of knowledge and experience here -I dont know a fraction of it.

 

I noticed in my journal, amongst pages of not very pretty writing, a few lines where the slant , size and spacing were consistent. Those two or three lines had something - quite apart from perfect copperplate or CI, or any particular style. 

 

It was just pleasing to look at.

[MuddyWaters]

It's a nice idea, thanks for sharing! I usually journal so I wouldn't post it here and I won't try to force it...

[Rroberrt]

Great pics, sir. I read (somewhere - there is so much to read here!), about stretching the forefinger out of the tripod grip.

 

I tried it for a paragraph or two and decided it was not for me. But when I looked back next day - those were the most consistent lines in the whole page.  Maybe I was just being more careful, but worth looking into.

 

Again, an interesting post. Thank you.

[InesF]

12 hours ago, Rroberrt said:

Imagine. The Grail - a page of beautiful writing, created by me.  

Like a beautiful painting by one who could never paint.  

Or a serene drawing by one who could never draw.  

A sea of charming hand-writing - by one who never could.

Hi Rroberrt.

 

You can!

 

It is a bit of how long you are consistently writing with fountain pens. I mean, carry your fountain pen with you and use it in any situation suitable. Every day.

Another thing is practise (no surprise, here). If your time allows, write one page per day with your fountain pen. Put all your attention on the form of your handwriting: equally sized letters, same letters look the same no matter at which position in a word, equal slant of the letters, use guidelines for the baselines (yes, really!) and do not write like a diary, simply copy some book text and do not care about the content - the form is all you need. Use a notebook or keep the single sheets!

 

To my experience, you will not recognise a progress for many weeks (if not month). But when you look back about 2 month, all of a sudden you will see it! You will get your full page of beautiful handwriting!

[txomsy]

Remember that perfection is not uniformity. There is more to it, and some deviations may add more to beauty than a totally clean presentation. Think Marilyn's mole.

 

And after all, it is you who really matters, and if you like it, that's all there is to it, and why not proudly share it with others?

[Rroberrt]

Hi InesF,

   And thank you for the encouragement and advice.  Yes, practice is the word, several pages a day, and when I look back a couple of weeks there is a difference.

 

The reason I referenced a “Page” is because what tickles me is the overall appearance of the paragraph, or even page. In other words the slope in general, and particularly the down-strokes, is what catches my eye. Spacing and form - yes, but not so much. (I’m comfortable with two forms of some letters used interchangeably.)

 

I’ve always had trouble with slope. My most consistent and what I like, is a slight backhand, but upright and forward slope sneak in when I’m not watching.  Practice!

 

Anyway, thanks for the interesting post. 

[Rroberrt]

52 minutes ago, txomsy said:

Remember that perfection is not uniformity. There is more to it, and some deviations may add more to beauty than a totally clean presentation. Think Marilyn's mole.

 

And after all, it is you who really matters, and if you like it, that's all there is to it, and why not proudly share it with others?

Txomsy!  That is exactly what I was trying to get at - not my moles, but the other bit.

 

Altho, for me uniformity in slope is huge. 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Rroberrt
added re slope

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

personally, I've found the thing that ruins my own writing is when I fail at consistent slope/angle

 

sometimes one letter will be more upright than the rest of the word/sentence and that ruins the entire flow.

 

so, I guess IMO the most important thing is consistent slope/angle.

[Rroberrt]

1 hour ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

 

sometimes one letter will be more upright than the rest of the word/sentence and that ruins the entire flow.

 

Yeah.  The ones that get me are:  e o c etc.

 

If it’s lengthy, where I can get into a rhythm, then not so bad.  But where the content is ‘choppy’, say for instance a list, or some quick notes - I’ll find myself suddenly confronted with an upper-case T in full blown forward slope.

 

Have to admit that it is not nearly as bad as couple of months ago. 🙂

[Rroberrt]

From a little different slant;  I must admit to feeling relieved, at first, to see from interesting posts, that my scrawl  is not as …..let’s say undisciplined as some who have been here a while.  But what I might have been missing is that many folks in FPN are far more interested in pens and inks: collecting and history, than in a “Perfect Page”.

 

I guess it goes the other way too….interest in writing or ink-line as a precise design, - with recognized norms.

 

I do hope that I have not offended anyone here.  What astounds me, (and trying to get my arms around it), is the phenominal collection of talented people with such varied and intense interests, …..around the Fountain Pen.

[sirgilbert357]

4 hours ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

personally, I've found the thing that ruins my own writing is when I fail at consistent slope/angle

 

sometimes one letter will be more upright than the rest of the word/sentence and that ruins the entire flow.

 

so, I guess IMO the most important thing is consistent slope/angle.

 

Me too.

 

Also, the bottom part of letters that go below the line like y, g, j, etc...when those all look different (in length, the shape/style of the loop, etc), it looks sloppy to my eye.

 

Some people here have handwriting that makes mine look like a child writing in the dirt with a stick, LOL. I've heard there's a place to post your handwriting up on FPN, but I've avoided it. LOL.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

2 hours ago, Rroberrt said:

Yeah.  The ones that get me are:  e o c etc.

 

If it’s lengthy, where I can get into a rhythm, then not so bad.  But where the content is ‘choppy’, say for instance a list, or some quick notes - I’ll find myself suddenly confronted with an upper-case T in full blown forward slope.

 

Have to admit that it is not nearly as bad as couple of months ago. 🙂

mine is worlds better than two years ago (that's not saying much...), but still not where I want it. I can't get the entry to my m's and n's rounded and smooth... 😕 and my d's suck.

If you want to see what I WANT it to look like, go find the instagram page for Acoustic Pens... #handwritinggoals

 

23 minutes ago, sirgilbert357 said:

 

Me too.

 

Also, the bottom part of letters that go below the line like y, g, j, etc...when those all look different (in length, the shape/style of the loop, etc), it looks sloppy to my eye.

 

Some people here have handwriting that makes mine look like a child writing in the dirt with a stick, LOL. I've heard there's a place to post your handwriting up on FPN, but I've avoided it. LOL.

Mine tends to fail usually on ascenders, a word might have three letters with ascenders and i'll screw up the middle one... ugh...

 

There are a couple threads for your handwriting, I also have avoided showing my scrawl, unfortunately, I had to show it in the ink reviews I've posted... But I also provide the typed out text for each page, so that I don't have people chase me with pitchforks for having forced them to read my chicken scratch.

[Rroberrt]

Shortly after joining FPN I did an exercise to determine which was my NATURAL slope. After three pages it was all three, Backhand, Upright and Forward - so no help.

 

Another video was more helpful: the gentleman suggested ‘leaning’ consciously on every down-stroke and ending it with a little curl.

That helps with getting a rhythm but wouldn’t that push one towards ‘Upright?

 

Anyone know how the first pen-writers sloped their letters?  Not the people who made up styles, but the ancients - the first monks I guess?

[halffriedchicken]

22 hours ago, Rroberrt said:

I wrote a perfect word yesterday.  Well, it was actually an abbreviation, and a little feathered, but to my eye a thing of beauty.

Imagine. The Grail - a page of beautiful writing, created by me.  

Like a beautiful painting by one who could never paint.  

Or a serene drawing by one who could never draw.  

A sea of charming hand-writing - by one who never could.

 

I must try your patience (if you are reading this blether), and bow out for an hour. My wife has a zoom mtg scheduled that requires my iPad. (She has her own but….)  Will finish later.

I like to think recognizing imperfections is crucial to the process of improvement. This is a good thing because you have a clearer perspective in your ability to see and your ability to write. If the two are the same then you could be satisfied by what you don't know can be better, but this also means you have no room to improve or grow but can only compare yourself to that once perfect page. Even the most accomplished artists will always want to improve and get better; so, no matter where you are in your journey of improving, I think it's important to be satisfied with the process.

 

Maybe I would liken it more to a musician. Every performance stands on its own and can hopefully be appreciated for what it is. If you only focus on the sour notes then you can't appreciate the good ones. 

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

14 minutes ago, halffriedchicken said:

I like to think recognizing imperfections is crucial to the process of improvement. This is a good thing because you have a clearer perspective in your ability to see and your ability to write. If the two are the same then you could be satisfied by what you don't know can be better, but this also means you have no room to improve or grow but can only compare yourself to that once perfect page. Even the most accomplished artists will always want to improve and get better; so, no matter where you are in your journey of improving, I think it's important to be satisfied with the process.

 

Maybe I would liken it more to a musician. Every performance stands on its own and can hopefully be appreciated for what it is. If you only focus on the sour notes then you can't appreciate the good ones. 

good perspective  

[inkstainedruth]

9 hours ago, Rroberrt said:

Txomsy!  That is exactly what I was trying to get at - not my moles, but the other bit.

 

Altho, for me uniformity in slope is huge. 

Depending on how rushed I am for time, how awake I am, and how engaged I am in getting words down on the page in my journal, it looks like I have multiple personality disorder.  

Add to that I use a different pen (with a variety of nib widths) and ink every day (and sometimes multiple pens/inks if I'm emptying pens to be flushed out...), and the fact that sometimes I'm just ranting about stuff that happened the day before, it's a good thing my morning pages journal are NOT for public consumption....  

Slope uniformity is the least of my handwriting woes. 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Rroberrt]

Ah! But dear inkstainedruth, I am smitten.  I have seen the grail abroad at FPN. 

 

I shall continue to pursue parallelism, in company with ‘IthinkIhaveaproblem’ and the good SirGilbert - encouraged by the wisdom of “halffriedchicken”.

 

Now if I only knew whether my parallels should stand upright, or should writing join the rest of my attributes - leaning backwards.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

35 minutes ago, Rroberrt said:

 

Now if I only knew whether my parallels should stand upright, or should writing join the rest of my attributes - leaning backwards.

Try and force examples of both and see which you prefer?

 

[Rroberrt]

Thank you ‘Halffried’.  You reminded me of something I overlooked while enjoying that one pretty (and parallel) word - “Progress not perfection”.  Very perceptive of you, if I may say.