My #handwriting and #FountainPen story, in response to @MsHearthWitch and other folks who have asked:
As a kid I learned Zaner-Bloser cursive teaching script[1] in U.S. elementary school and then proceeded to never use it again. (Ballpoint and pencil just aren’t really suited for cursive.) I switched permanently to print, then oblique italic in early adulthood, which is still my daily handwriting.
1/
[1] Overview of U.S. teaching scripts: https://www.howjoyful.com/lettering-cursive/
When I started using fountain pens, I quickly figured out that cursive actually makes sense with fountain pens. So I looked at a few guides, at first I didn’t really know what I was looking for and just experimented. I looked at a bunch of the classic U.S.[2], English [3], and German[4] cursives and kind of picked what I liked.
2/
[2] US cursives: https://loopsandtails.com/cursive/
[3] English round hand: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Universal_Penman_Etc/lHQdZONVcIkC
[4] German old teaching script: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lateinische_Ausgangsschrift_1953_plain.svg#/media/Datei:Lateinische_Ausgangsschrift_1953_plain.svg
So I guess in the end this is a round hand derivative with mostly Zaner-Bloser as a base, combined with some Spencerian[5] and Palmer[6] capitals.
3/3
[5] Spencerian at Loops and Tails: https://loopsandtails.com/spencerian/
[6] Palmer Method: https://palmermethod.com/
@paradoxmo Just wanted to say: thank you for posting this.
After many years of writing more and more unrecognizably, I just recently started to make an effort to develop a nice handwriting (with a fountain pen) and am still looking for a cursive writing style to aim for.
@gcvsa re: why ballpoints are bad for cursive, there’s a whole article about it in The Atlantic[1] from a few years ago. The gist of it is that because ballpoints and pencils require you to press into the page, it’s more natural to write in separate strokes and motions because as soon as you let up the pressure, you get a thinner line or no line.
1/
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/ballpoint-pens-object-lesson-history-handwriting/402205/
if it’s cut off, switch your browser to reader mode and it should load the entire thing.
This need to exert pressure downward is not helpful for cursive as you have to keep the pen moving horizontally as well as push it down. It doesn’t lend itself to one uninterrupted stroke because as soon as you do nothing, the stroke stops. So it’s much more natural to use pressure to initiate strokes on each letter because this keeps the ink or mark consistently dark.
2/
With a fountain pen or dip pen, your stroke continues if you pause your hand motion and do nothing. So it’s quite natural to write continuously in one stroke. It doesn’t require exerting pressure downward, so all you have to worry about is moving the pen forward. This makes connecting several letters together in one stroke the more effortless thing to do.
With ballpoints, linking letters in one stroke requires extra effort, so many people stop doing it and switch to an unconnected hand.
3/3
paradoxmo
Frank Sonntag
inky cicada
Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐
Toga