Fountain Pen Care and Feeding: Handwriting Improvement


Posted on December 26th, 2006 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, Craft, Hack, Journaling, Notetaking.

Fountain Pen HandwritingSo, you received a fountain pen from Santa for Christmas and now you realize the reason you mostly use email for all of your communications as even you can not read your own handwriting even 5 mins after you wrote it down? Well in the continuation of the Fountain Pen Care and Feeding Series - Todays topic is how to use your fountain pen for the greater good or how to improve your handwriting. Bad Handwriting can be extremely bad for all (Check out this Article on how much damage bad handwriting does to the medical industry - Via CNN Or This article)

 I personally have used and like what I have learned from The Write-Now Course on Handwriting - Here is one of the many reviews on Amazon about this handwriting course:

It's Never Too Late to Change Your Handwriting,  Reviewer: A reader
Like so many others, I learned the standard "ball and stick" print style of handwriting and progressed to the "looped" cursive style when I was in grade school–and I got very high marks in penmanship. By high school I could write fastest in cursive, but I was taking notes so fast it became illegible. Somehow I made it through graduate school taking notes fast and figuring out what I wrote later. Ever since then, I've chosen the computer over handwriting as much as possible. (Not to mention the "looped" cursive isn't very masculine.)

Enter "Write Now". What a great book! "Write Now" teaches a style of handwriting called Italic (meaning "from Italy"). My first thought was that this was some "new" style and couldn't be as good as the "basics" I was taught. Turns out, what I was taught is the "new" style (19th century) and Italic is the more traditional (16th century). It is the style that was used by Leonardo Da Vinci and Michaelangelo.

Italic focuses on efficiency, ergonomics, legibility, and speed. It easily transitions from print to cursive to calligraphy with little change in the way you write the characters. "Write Now" is broken into three sections: 1) Basic Italic (print) 2) Cursive Italic and 3) Edged Pen Italic (calligraphy). With good explanations and illustrations, it is a pleasure to learn a new style of handwriting.

"Write Now" is geared towards adults (or teens) and presents a "cartoon's guide" to the history of handwriting throughout–a good reference even if you don't want to improve your handwriting. The author's are veteran educators and have produced an entire series of books on Italic handwriting to take kids from kindergarten through grade school. They are also in very high demand for in-house hospital seminars to those who most desparately need handwriting help–doctors. :-)

I recommend this book highly. My handwriting has already improved. I actually look for reasons throughout the day to use my new skills. If you're like me, don't pass this one up.

 But if you are not looking to purchase a book on how to improve your handwriting you can get some tips from the following websites such as the article "Handwriting Tips" on PaperPenalia.
Most of the other sites I found on Handwriting are usually geared towards youth such as "Draw Your World" Page on Handwriting. But still you can get some good information from it as well. 

Calligraphy ExampleBut perhaps you thought a fountain pen was going to "Make you write Fancy" well that fancy handwriting has a name - Calligraphy - and actually requires a special nib or ink pen for Calligraphy Writing called an italic nib and comes in various styles. Yes, you can still use a regular pen or fountain pen and follow the instructions for italic handwriting (I again like the directions in the Write Now Book) But if you would like some additional instructions on Calligraphic Writing check out the PDF located at the bottom of Handwriting for Kids Page Or you can check out the Italic Handwriting Page from Studio Arts Page. But to learn more about Calligraphy and explore more web pages with Calligraphy (Which BTW Means Beautiful Handwriting) would be the 42 Explore Page.

 Merlin

TAGS: Handwriting Italic Penmanship calligraphy fountain pen fountain+pen writing free course info


3 comments.

Happy New Year! From Merlin’s Tower!!! » « Merry Christmas From MT - FREE Modern Christmas Carol

a11en

Comment on December 27th, 2006.

Woohoo! Fountainpens rock! ;) he he he he…

Merry Christmas, Merlin! Have a great New Year!!

(Write Now is an excellent book- I’m using it, and I recommend it to anyone who is trying to write better!)

Raymond

Comment on December 30th, 2006.

Looks a little like what we were taught in Drafting when I was studying ME.

Kolz Blog » Blog Archive » The truth behind the Someday/Maybe list

Pingback on January 6th, 2007.

[...] The truth behind the Someday/Maybe list January 4th, 2007 by David Allen The last couple of weeks I have not been working on my gtd setup but actually been doing stuff. Really getting things done. From buying a new outfit to cleaning up a part of the attic and reading up on my stack of magazines. But also, as ever, just some casual browsing and checing out other websites and blogs. I love browsing through Flickr, Del.icio.us and other social sites where you can find some true pearls. This is were I found out how my mind works and how the Weekly Review and your Someday/Maybe list actually work. First up, I am not a scientist. This is not scientifically proven by any empirical investigation. It’s just my own thoughts and some common sense. With that disclaimer, here it is… I have a mindmap with my running projects, Inbox (thanks to GyroQ) and also my Someday/Maybe list. This is just a big pile of creative thoughts, “ought-tos”, “wannas”, “maybe-one-day”-kind of blurbs and thoughts. Whenever I think of something which isn’t part of a project but might be something good to do in the future, it goes on the S/M list. Once a week I check out my big Inbox, my projectlist and the S/M list. And for every item I think to myself: “Do I want to do this right now or not?” Most of the time, the stuff on this list are really just “fun” things to do. Like doing more with photography, improving my handwriting or checking out some more statistics about my Pearl Jam record collection (yeah, one thing you didn’t know about me…). So to most items I say to myself “Not right now” and I go on. This way, I know that I am doing the things I need to do and I know what I don’t do. Which is just as important. But a couple of days ago, between Christmas and Newyear, I found out how powerful your mind can work. I was just browsing some websites and I came across a blogpost on “getting better handwriting”. I read it and clicked through to some excercises and tips on how you can improve your handwriting. I checked it out for a couple of minutes and decided to make a note of the site in my Mindmap for later investigation. A day later I was browsing Flickr.com and I came across this fun thing called Project365. It is a project you do for yourself in which you make a picture each day of the year. Doesn’t matter what it is or how good it is. But it gives you, after a year, an archive of the past year. What a fun way to document 2007! So I started taking my first picture on January 1st in my Project365-photoset on Flickr. Both these items were on my S/M-list. Truth is, if I haven’t checked my S/M-list at least once a week, I wouldn’t have made a connection between actually seeing these links and acting upon it. You could say that the S/M-list is your “Dream”-list. When you make sure you look at your dreams hared enough and think about them on the right moments, they will come true (he says in a Disney-way…) when you least expect it. I think the S/M-list in combination with your regular list give your brains enough freedom to actually see the opportunities in front of you and act upon it. Because your mind is free of thinking about your daily to-do’s and errands, you are free to think happy things and be creative. There you have it, the truth behind the S/M-list. It’s more than meets the eye. It’s a very creative and powerful list which you should give just as much attention as your @computer list. What are your thoughts? What are your experiences with the Someday/Maybe list? [...]

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