Author Topic: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"  (Read 11459 times)

Offline schin

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"An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« on: March 06, 2014, 02:00:55 AM »
I thought this little excerpt would amuse you guys!

An ornamental handwriting is a nuisance! What with flourishes and extraneous appendages, the reader is continually distracted from the text to the characters, and generally ends by wishing the writer had used better taste in his chirography. A master who teaches anything but making neat, plain handwriting, is not fit for a teacher.
By Richard A Wells "Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society 1891"

So of course I had to write it out in an ornamental spencerian.. care to join me?

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Offline LweezCI

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #1 on: March 06, 2014, 02:37:47 AM »
Ahahaha! He must've had a bad handwriting. Most people from their time seem to have neat and legible handwriting.

Schin! I'm in awe of your work!
Irony made the excerpt funny... and pretty... pretty daunting.  ;D
Louise C.I.

Offline Roseann

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #2 on: March 06, 2014, 03:09:32 AM »
That's just beautiful Schin.
Roseann

“The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”   R. L. Stevenson

Offline tintenfuchs

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #3 on: March 06, 2014, 03:32:24 AM »
Lovely, Schin, just lovely. <3
And yes, I'll gladly join you and write this out in Copperplate today :D
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Offline Martín

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2014, 06:06:13 AM »
I didn't retain anything of what it says... but it's oh so pretty! ;)

Offline Erica McPhee

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2014, 09:46:20 AM »
LOL! Shin, this is gorgeous! I was so distracted, though, "look... so pretty but what does it say?" HAHA!

Once in our guild meeting many, many years ago, an older gentleman who was a copperplate penman, was shown a copy of one of my Spencerian invitations. The person showing it to him said, "Isn't it lovely?" He huffed and responded, "I think it's a mess!"  HA! I laughed so hard I spit my drink out!  ;D
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Offline FrenchBlue Joy

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2014, 09:59:39 AM »
Schin Loong, The Cat's Patoot.  It bears repeating   ;D

Offline Linda Y.

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2014, 01:46:42 PM »
I need this made into a print and framed on the wall!  ;D

Offline Erica McPhee

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2014, 01:57:36 PM »
Good idea! Schin, your Etsy is calling on line 1!  :)
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Offline Blotbot

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #9 on: March 14, 2014, 10:01:44 AM »
I think this may be right!  I was browsing through the Madarasz book at IAMPETH and found an example of his "normal" handwriting.

http://www.iampeth.com/books/madarasz_book/madarasz_page9.html

Apparently the great penman didn't use the fancy stuff for everyday things!

Offline schin

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #10 on: March 14, 2014, 01:38:47 PM »
Omg he's human too! No way!
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Offline AndyT

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #11 on: March 22, 2014, 12:19:09 PM »
Wonderful, Schin.  Exquisite work, and it made me laugh when I first saw it on your blog.

Offline ultraQuiche

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #12 on: May 07, 2014, 02:59:57 PM »
This is a pleasure to look at, what fabulous script! What pen point did you use?

I think this might have been scanned on a slight downward slant hey?

Offline AmyNeub

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #13 on: June 20, 2014, 01:25:41 PM »
I love your writing! I was just thinking this. The shades have nothing to do the anything on the lowercase letters. When I look a letters I try and put them into families or siblings, so Spencerian is ridiculous.

But it's so interesting at the same time. I just have to write it out...

I wrote a name in lowercase (still mastering the lowercase no uppers yet) and none of the letters had a shade. Yuck, I want to Copperplate the hell out of it.

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Offline AndyT

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Re: "An ornamental Handwriting is a nuisance!"
« Reply #14 on: June 20, 2014, 04:18:14 PM »
It's that light and airy texture you see on a page of Spencerian which I adore: someone here likened the shades to wildflowers in a meadow and I really wish I'd thought of that.  But each to their own.  Another thing which is nice is that you can write a few lines without dipping if you shade infrequently and pick the right nib!

However, there are established shading options for most letters, so if you want to copperplate the hell of it, you sort of can.  (And Louis Madarasz sort of did, sometimes).  Schin has exercised a good deal of restraint but there are quite a few very light shades scattered about in there, on the top of a and g, the final downstroke of m and n, and on r for instance - but you have to go hunting for them.