Spencerian beginner

[Trazo]

Hi there!

I am completely new to this forum and very new to calligraphy. I am trying to find my way trough Spencerian with the help of some old instruction books. In this adventurous journey a couple of question have turned up (hopefully they are not very stupid):

1) Is there any quality on-line course on Spencerian in a near future? Are there any other resources available I should try? Any magic books or supplies I should buy?

2) Spencerian was created for English writing, which means the original script has no diacritics. I come from Spain, but I have been living for the last 25 years or so in Prague (Czech republic). For this reason my writing is mainly in Spanish and Czech, and both languages (specially the last one) use diacritics. I know this is a small detail, but I would like to know if anybody has resolved satisfactorily this question and if there are any exemplars I could consult.

3) Is there any online resource where I could see exemplars of actual Spencerian writing from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century? I am interested in real material from normal people (letters, business documents...), not from pen masters. I would really love to see how the script functioned and evolved in real life. However I wouldn't mind good pictures of Spencerian masterpieces: the exemplar of the old books are lithographic reproductions, which is not quite the thing, and the photographic reproductions in more modern materials (like the ones in Lessons of Ornamental Penmanship by Bloser) have very poor quality (specially after printing from a scanned version of the book, which is my case).

Thanks for your time and expertise. I am very glad to be in this venerable community. All the best.

[Erica McPhee]

Hi! These are great questions. There are many resources available for Spencerian now. I highly recommend Michael Sull’s book Learning to Write Spencerian Script. You can find a link to Paper & Ink Arts and John Neal here: https://www.theflourishforum.com/supply-resources/

You can see some exemplars on IAMPETH.com.

Online classes for Spencerian are few and far between. Master Penman Harvest Crittendon offers it sometimes via her acornartsclasses.org. And there is this one: https://bellagrafiaink.com/calligraphy-class.

Regarding the diacritics - that is a good question. @Estefa Any thoughts?

Regarding online sources for real examples, I am not sure. David Grimes has put together a nice archive that you may find of interest: https://masgrimes.com/archive

Have fun on this new journey! And welcome to Flourish!

[Estefa]

Hi and welcome to Flourish, @Trazo ! Thanks for asking me, @Erica McPhee ! I just make the diacritics in German how I think they look good and are legible and fit the script, be it in Copperplate or Spencerian. In German we only have »umlauts«, which are two points over a vowel, like so: o or ö. You can actually write them as little dashes, lines, or as dots in handwriting. When I write Spanish or French, I tend to make the accents as littles dashes (thicker on top – like very small triangles, if that makes sense …), so that they don’t get confused with an i-dot. I don’t know about how to write Czech diacritics, so I’m sorry I can’t help there!

[darrin1200]

John Neal Bookseller has a pretty good list of online courses.
https://www.johnnealbooks.com/prod_detail_list/online-classes

[Trazo]

Thanks all for your nice and qualified answers.

I will try to order Michael Sull's book, but in the current situation shipping is quite problematic. And definitely I will take the video course by Harvest Crittendon.

Concerning the Spencerian exemplars, I have had a quick look to the archive compiled by David Grimes, but it seems to be focused on instruction books. That kind of materials are quite easily accessible on the internet. I was thinking more on good photographs of actual writing from people who used the Spencerian script in its heydays. I will keep searching.

The suggested solution for Spanish accents and German umlaut seems very sensible. The problem with Czech diacritics is that the don't fall only on vowels (á, é, í, ý, ó, ú, ů, ě), but they appear very often on consonants (š, ž, ť, ď, ň, ř). The most distinctive diacritic sign in Czech is an angle with the pick at its bottom, so it could be written as an entire hairline or with a shadow in the first downstroke and a hairline in the following upstroke. Another question to take in account is the size of the diacritic sign itself and its position in relation to the letter. I was making some sketches with consonants the other day and the possibilities seem to be endless. I wish I could call Mr. R. P. Spencer and ask him which one he likes the best. Well, I know I should't worry about these things when I still can not form properly the letters, but I can't help it...

Thanks again. All the best.

[jeanwilson]

It's never too soon to start considering the options.
A good rule of thumb is to maintain consistency.
For example, a good starting point for placement is to imagine a pencil slant line going through the letter and place the mark as close to centered as possible - and moving it slightly, if the letter has an ascender and they are too close.

Since the original Spencerian only put shades on a few of the letters, there is probably no need for shades on the diacritics - as you begin.
Maybe you'll see a need for them later on . But first, after you write a full page and then look at the texture of the text - you can evaluate if the marks are unobtrusive and look like they belong. Looking at individual letters won't show you what they look like in context.

Consider your readers. Will they actually be looking at the marks -or- do they already understand the words and would be able to read the text without the marks? It's like removing all the vowels in a passage - where most of the time, readers can figure out what it says. So the marks can be lovely, subtle details nestled in with comfortable spacing and consistency.

Since Spencerian was meant to be an everyday penmanship - making the marks in the most natural way will probably lead you in the right direction.

Have you looked through the IAMPETH site to see if any of the scrapbooks have been digitized? They contain nice examples of the everyday penmanship. If you can't find that information on the website, you might try emailing Mike Sull directly. If he does not respond, send me a DM and I can ask some of the people I know who are members who might be able to help.

[Trazo]

Dear Jean,

Than you very much for your answer. It give me a lot of good ideas to put into practice. Obviously diacritics are consubstantial to Czech language, but, as you say, you can decipher the text without them (in fact you don't use them, for example, when you text on the phone).

The question about the feeling of diacritics belonging or not to the script is a bit problematic indeed, as I have mixed fillings when I look at the page: for my reader eye diacritics look very natural because they are supposed to be there, but for my calligraphic eye they look weird, as I have never seen a Czech text in Spencerian script.

Concerning the position of the diacritic, I agree with you that it should be on the slant and in a centred position to the axis of the letter, but in capitals like "Z" and "S" that means placing it quite above the ascender line (the only analogy I can find is the dot of the "i" and it is, if I am not wrong, one whole space above the body of the letter).

I will look at the IAMPETH page for that real material. I am just curious about it. It is quite paradoxical that I have seen hundreds of modern Spencerian specimens on Instagram and similar, but I don't know much actual writing from the period.

Thanks again.

[Trazo]

If anybody have interest in it, I took a picture of some Czech text with the usual diacritics. I hope the respectable members of this forum won't be offended by the monstrosity of my letters. My only consolation is that, if the diacritics don't look Spencerian, the letters don't do either. That is what I call consistency 

[Erica McPhee]

Beautiful! You have fabulous consistency and your slant is right on point! Next step will be slowing down a bit and refining your letterforms. Also, look at size/perspective. But you have a really nice hand developing! Thank you for sharing.

[Lyric]

I believe Connie Chen teaches online Spencerian.  You may find her on YouTube and she has her own website.

Best on your Spencerian journey.  I am excited for you.

[Lyric]

https://www.conniechen.academy/

https://www.conniechen.academy/p/spencerian-structures/

[jeanwilson]

To my eye, the marks look just fine. I can see how hard it is to perch them on top of the tall skinny caps.
Keeping them centered  and fairly close seems to be your best option.
Even a tiny bit of shade is nice. But, I think that might depend on the particular letter.
If you have time to do a page of text that incorporated all the caps with marks - that would be interesting to see.
Again, I think it needs to be in a block of text rather than just individual words on their own.

[Trazo]

First of all, thank you very much for your kind support. I am absolutely alone in this journey with no other help than some old instruction books and the information I can find on the web. Every piece of feedback (included of course the negative) will be indeed very welcome. It is lees than three months that I put the pen into ink for first time in my life and I am enjoying the learning process a lot.

In fact, although I am completely aware of my script problems (letter form, spacing, slant and so on), I have the feeling that the first battle I have to win is the control over the pen. My lines are very shaky and, if I slow down on ascenders and descenders, they get even worse. I wrote that page with a vintage Sommerville Plume Galoise 750 EF. As a beginner, I probably would have to stick with the Nikko G or the Zebra G, but I find them very stiff an I think I will never be able to light my hand if I write with them. However, I will have to reconsider this point, as this morning I was listening to an old show of The calligraphy podcast where I fond out that Michael Sull makes practically all his work with a Nikko G. If the Nikko is good enough for a master penman, it should be good enough for this poor guy.

Yesterday I was thinking about this question and I tried a little experiment. I wrote the same page with three different tools: a cheap Kaweko fountain pen with an extra fine nib (the brown ink), a quality Parker fountain pen with a broad nib (the blue ink) and a Pilot 0.7 gel pen (the black ink).  It was quite an interesting experience: in general terms, I think the result is better and that I am not so shaky, but every tool had a different feeling and a different challenge. The Kaweko is almost as fine as  scratchy as a pointed nib, so my hand was shaking again; the Parker had nice flow and I enjoyed the rhythm of my writing; the Pilot was so smooth that I hardly could control the speed (it pushed me ahead as a runaway horse).

Thanks for the info about Connie Chen Spencerian course. I already knew about it, but honestly I think it is a quite a big money for a canned course. I will think about it.

Take care.

[jeanwilson]

However, I will have to reconsider this point, as this morning I was listening to an old show of The calligraphy podcast where I fond out that Michael Sull makes practically all his work with a Nikko G. If the Nikko is good enough for a master penman, it should be good enough for this poor guy.

Yesterday I was thinking about this question and I tried a little experiment. I wrote the same page with three different tools: a cheap Kaweko fountain pen with an extra fine nib (the brown ink), a quality Parker fountain pen with a broad nib (the blue ink) and a Pilot 0.7 gel pen (the black ink).  It was quite an interesting experience: in general terms, I think the result is better and that I am not so shaky, but every tool had a different feeling and a different challenge. The Kaweko is almost as fine as  scratchy as a pointed nib, so my hand was shaking again; the Parker had nice flow and I enjoyed the rhythm of my writing; the Pilot was so smooth that I hardly could control the speed (it pushed me ahead as a runaway horse).

Thanks for the info about Connie Chen Spencerian course. I already knew about it, but honestly I think it is a quite a big money for a canned course. I will think about it.

I never cared for copperplate or Spencerian until I took a workshop with Mike Sull (about 20 yrs ago) when he had first discovered how much better students did with Nikko G + McCaffrey ink + Clairfontaine paper (or Rhodia). Then, when I started teaching, and students showed up with different supplies, I did not require them to buy the three items that I think give beginners the best chance - but I offered them to students to try and they generally saw better results and went with that combination of nib-ink-paper.

Yes, the Nikko G is stiff, but starting out with minimal shades is so much better. I know people love heavy shades, but if they would just wait until they had all the other details in order, the learning experience can be so much smoother.

McCaffrey's ink might be hard to get if you are not in the US - so walnut ink would be a very good substitute.

You are wise to listen to your *feeling* that the first thing you need to learn is control over your pen. Most people want to dive into the full alphabet. IMHO, that's way too much. In my very first class, we didn't even start letters during the first lesson. It was all about making marks. Then we learned the letters in groups. There are instructors who teach styles in alphabetical order and maybe that's the way they learned. I had the luxury of going to both IAMPETH and the international conference - and attend workshops with rock stars like Mike Sull - and they all taught letters in groups.

My advice to beginners is always to find lessons (either books or online) where you study in groups and spend a fair amount of time on the lower case. Don't bother with the caps until your lower case is order.

Your description of trying all the different pens to see how they feel is wonderful. Finding the right feel is so important. It's so hard to share every component of the process with beginners. One of the most important things of all -- that we hardly ever talk about -- is what the surface is under your paper. A single sheet of paper on a hard surface it terrible for writing. You need blotter paper or 4 or 5 sheets of paper so that you have a little cushion to the surface. But, you don't want to write in a notebook, because it's too thick and your hand will fall off the edge. So anyone who has been writing on one sheet of paper on the desk should try 4-5 sheets of paper and feel the difference.

Also the height of your chair to the desk. You need to be high enough that your shoulders are not hunched - but not too high. The old instruction books include information on proper posture and people generally just skip that part - but truly - it is a very important part of the process.

[Trazo]

Dear Jean,

Your advice sound always very wise. I will go back to my Nikko G and see if we become better friends. The usual recommendation for beginners is a Nikko nib, a Rhodia pad and some sumi/iron gall/ wallnut ink, but I am the kind of person who has to try everything. I am now in the usual beginner enthusiastic mood and I want to put my hand on every supply I can find. I will surely come down in a couple of months. McCaffery ink is not very available in Europe and even walnut ink is not very common. I recently ordered a couple of bags of walnut crystals from England and I will see if I can make some ink out of them when they arrive.

The blotter paper is something that has also puzzled me for a while. I don't know where to find it or how it actually looks. I read somewhere you can use a sheet of thick watercolour paper instead and that is what I do (the fist page I posted is written this way). However I never know how much cushion I should have, so sometimes I put some extra Rhodia sheets under the water colour paper, sometimes over it. Well, these days my life is a continue experimentation.

Thanks again.