Visit my regular blog to see all kinds of quick and easy lettering and penmanship - on envelopes.
There is a new post every single day.
Below is the first set of tips for a pen pal who has sent in a sample of his penmanship.
The scan is followed by my tips.
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| If you click on this, you can see it larger. |
Working on just the first line of your regular penmanship I have shown how I would approach the fine tuning to make it pleasing.
It is nice to choose words that you like to write so I assume you like the words you chose. If not choose some new words.
It is helpful to turn the words you like into a bit of a drill where you are working on just a few at a time.
My line 1 shows warm up.
I saw that you had nice intro strokes on everything but the u in *out* so I tried to add them - but note that I, too, had trouble remembering to put them in.
It's no big deal - but a certain amount of consistency is your friend
Your s is fine - but has quite a bit of zig-zag to it.
Decide for yourself if you like the look of it the way it is - or maybe you want it a little straighter - but at the very least, try to give it an exit stroke as that will be helpful.
Look at your ascender and descender loops. Lots of variety. Mine is somewhat more consistent. Keep in mind - I was trying to copy your penmanship so - it would take me awhile to build my own consistency in what i was copying.
Your t's have a lot of flair - which - for now I would rein in. I know it might be boring - but it's nice to have a basic style as your base line. Generally the t is a bit shorter. The t in *the* seems way too tall. the t in *last* is better.
Dotting the i correctly is a plus. Don't take something like that for granted. People who have wild dots can have a heck of a time putting them where they belong.
Your slant if great - another area to be grateful you do not have to fix.
And I love your letter spacing.
There is a lot about your penmanship that reminds me of Spencerian - so it would be fine to look to Spencerian for more tips.
I did only one capital I and then just did a lower case. That's a letter that gives me fits.
Caps are a whole different project -
On your full sample, I like your caps - but we will need to look at all of them - at a later date - if you want to stick with this experiment.
My last line shows a way to put a *hitch* in the e to give it a prettier loop.
The first one has the hitch.
The second one shows how pinched it gets if you do not pause and give the loop a little more space.
The third one shows a space between the two letters - which you would not do - it just shows where you pause and change directions.
The third one shows what happens if you start the loop earlier to give it more space which I do not feel is a good option.
the last three are trying to show the *hitch* or pause where you stop and change the direction of the loop.
This is a very picky detail. Feel free to ignore it.
Word spacing.
Look at the really good penmanship and you will see word spacing that is a bit tighter than what you see in people who are not obsessed with penmanship.
Decide for yourself if you think there is value in tightening up your word spacing.
You do not have to agree with me on anything - But, I will continue to share what my preferences are.
If you wish to continue - please take the first line and do something similar to what I did where you make the minor adjustments that sound good to you.
Then go on to the second line and go through the steps that I did.
This time, I will just tell you what I would fix and you see if you agree - and decide for yourself which of my suggestions you wish to implement.
Nice H - but let it stand on its own.
Nice r -
among- a-o-g have a consistent x-height. m and n seem a bit shorter and would like to be same x-height as their friends
Compare the next two t's and decide what you want to do.
You seem to be going for the Spencerian style of crossing - I am not a personal fan in my own work - but i have seen people use it very successfully -
so if you want to go that route - just decide how you are going to do it.
Look at the two h's and compare them to the m and n.
Again - they seem skimpy compared to a-o-g
Ponder touching the line - or writing just a tad above the line.
Slavishly touching the line is good exercise and builds consistency - but not if it is an annoyance.
I rather like aiming for the baseline and hitting it - when I am working on rhythm. Then, when I am doing something that will be a finished piece - I bounce around a bit and do not hit the line every time - I go both below and above.
There is something about knowing you can do it - and then busting out - that can be stylish -
If you start with the idea that precisions doesn't matter - it sometimes comes out looking just wild -
Some people pull it off - I'm not saying you have to *toe-the-line*
- I'm just tossing the idea out for you to ponder and decide.
The r in lording is not as pretty as the r in Here - so make all your r's like the one in Here ;-)
I look forward to seeing these two lines...with some tweaking...
If you find it too boring to write the same thing over and over - we'll look for a different way to approach this -
but, IMHO, it helps if people can do some repetition to start seeing the differences - and see that they can self-critique and fix things....
Keep posting to the forum -
and I will post my replies here - so that I can attach higher resolution scans.
