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After 8 years of 1 hour penmanship classes, I am pleased with my handwriting. I prefer gel pens...
Private schools tend to emphasize the simple things that last a life time. .penmanship is a lost art...
I don't have very good handwriting but I noticed that a thin point seems to help. Most pens don't seem very good so I'm always looking for something that will make my writing easier and better.
This is an old thread, but I thought I would reply.
Some of the work I do is calligraphy. The art of beautiful writing.
The essential elements to good writing don't lie in the tool used. While they all have their individual qualities, a person who wants to develop good penmanship can learn just as easily with a common #2 pencil as anything else. Many writers who write longhand prefer them, as they are cheap, don't need drying time, and are easy to use anywhere.
It's all in the hand, wrist and arm, not the tool.
The critical elements are the positioning of the fingers first; if you touch the thumb, index and middle fingertips together, so they form a tiny triangle where they meet, and then push a pencil between your thumb and index so the point goes into that triangle, that's the correct grip of almost every tool that is used to create handwriting.
The tips of the fingers should be all slightly arched downwards, as if picking up a tiny object. The grip should be relaxed and loose, only tight enough to hold the pencil.
Good writing comes from moving the wrist more than the fingers. The least amount of down-pressure needed to make a mark on the paper is the best. When the hand is relaxed, the wrist and forearm take over, and big muscles don't tire as quickly as small muscles. Most of the writing work is done by wrist motions, with the fingers making small corrections along the way. The strokes should all be done with the wrist, not the fingers.
This grip may feel unnatural at first, but that's due to the lack of early penmanship lessons in grade school. Little kids, just learning how to use a pencil, are most often still developing their hand coordination and hand muscles. They grip their pencil any way that allows them control, and at that age, making a mark with it is more natural when wiggling the fingers than moving the hand from the wrist. Since no one ever corrects this stuff, adults simply use their first childish grip for the rest of their lives these days- a habit formed early.
Most children also grip their pencil very tightly to control it. And they push it down hard onto the paper as another means of control. Both of these are very tiring to the hand, wrist and arm. Again, old habits that are set in. The object of writing, when it was all longhand, was to be able to write for hours without pain. Fatigue sets in over that time span, but not pain. If it hurts to write after a page or two, these are usually the culprits.
The pencil should be held far enough from the point to allow a good view of it on the page, and when writing, the writer's back should be straight but relaxed, and the view of the pencil and paper should be far away enough to have a good view of the entire page. Humping over and working close to the paper is both tiring and mistake maker.
Most younger writers don't know how to write cursively these days. Cursive writing was developed for speed and longevity. people had to write a long document fast enough to keep it current, and they couldn't pause to rest the hand when writing. Cursive allows both.
To explain it is too extensive to put down here, but there are many manuals on it that are easily found. Learning cursive well includes exercises as well as learning letter forming. Look for a book with exercises in it.
Calligraphy is just taking cursive writing up a step or two. There are a lot of different letter styles used, but in all, much more attention is paid to uniformity of letter shape and size, good letter formation, and ways of adding ornamental strokes.
I've used about everything that can form a letter. While everyone who writes a lot has differing preferences, the tool I like best is a good fountain pen. A 'good' pen can be very expensive if it has an 18k gold nib; gold writes very, very smoothly. But many good pens have steel nibs that can be as smooth as gold if well made. A cheap fountain pen starts around $5.00. A good beginning pen runs around $20-$35, and the high quality pens have a wide price range from about $100 up. Some are designed to use ink cartridges only, most have converters that allow bottled ink to be used instead of the ink in cartridges, and some are designed to be filled from a bottle only.
Cartridges are the most expensive way to buy ink, but they are very convenient. A converter allows bottled ink to be used, and that's the cheapest ink of all, as one bottle will outlast a couple of boxes of roller balls, or a pile of cartridges. The pens that fill from bottles only hold the largest amount of ink.
A fountain pen is meant to last for years, not to be disposable. This is an advantage, as ever pen slowly wears to fit the writer's hand, so they become better over time. At the top range, they're largely still hand made in their most critical parts. A good fountain that has been kept clean can be just as good, or better, than a brand new one.
Cleaning is not hard; usually a flush with clean tap water will do it, with a more thorough cleaning done every year or so. But all require regular maintenance.
Bottled ink also allows a person to write in colors that are totally unavailable in all other pends, including inks that are forgery proof, invisible, waterproof, light fast, and have other qualities. Depending on the brand, a bottle can be around $9.00 up, and will usually last a year or more of daily writing before its gone. Depending on the amount of writing, of course.
Some inks are quite expensive, but fountain pens and the ink they use are now as often sold as luxury goods as writing tools alone.
A good one is a pen that lays down enough ink flow to allow the the point (the nib) of the pen to glide over the paper with the least amount of pressure needed to lay down the line. The only down-pressure a good fountain pen requires is just enough to control the letter shapes, and with practice, that's not very much.
It's a different sensation that comes from using a roller ball, but a roller ball liquid ink pen is next. A fountain pen sort of feels like ice skating- a smooth glide- and the line doesn't get globby. A ball collects the ink unevenly, and distributes it unevenly on the paper. A fountain pen's line is much more continuous and uniform, and the ink color is richer and more vivid.
A common ball point uses an oil based ink. For me, the feeling is too slippery. The ink is less vivid, as the dyes have to be different.
The point size really depends on the person. A bigger point makes a heavier line. If a person's natural writing is large, a heavier point may often produce better looking letters. Typically the larger the tip the smoother the line in all writing instruments, but a bold letter style requires more open space in all the closed letters and more space between letters and words.
The softer the lead in a pencil, the blacker the line. Pencil leads all abrade on the paper, giving the feel more scratch and grip than pens, but that's not necessarily bad. And although the line is easily erased, the line itself is actually permanent, in the sense that it does not fade away over time, bleed when wettened, or degrades as the paper ages. Most inks other than black do fade, change color, bleed, and can actually eat the paper away over time, sometimes.
Hope this helps.
Last edited by banjomike; 01-21-2017 at 10:12 PM..
BanjoMike:
'...A fountain pen is meant to last for years, not to be disposable. This is an advantage, as ever pen slowly wears to fit the writer's hand, so they become better over time. At the top range, they're largely still hand made in their most critical parts. A good fountain that has been kept clean can be just as good, or better, than a brand new one...'
I agree with everything Mike said. I am an Artist, have excellent penmanship, and also do calligraphy. A fountain pen is the way to go.
I prefer Black India Ink.
I have always done my best writing with a fountain pen. But I haven't owned one for many years. They can be messy; not so much writing, but handling and maintaining. But I do like the writing they produce.
I haven't used a fountain pen in a long time but I remember how good they felt in my hand and my writing usually looked better when I used one.
I find that gel pens, or any pens that don't have much resistance when pressed to paper, tend to make my writing look sloppy. Fountain pens have that good feeling of almost scratching the paper and that bit of resistance worked well for me.
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