Learning business penmanship

[daviddigi]

@Trazo - Saw your reply in the other thread about the Chinese penmen. Below is a list of Instagram accounts off the top of my head that you should checkout. All of their work is amazing. I've had the opportunity to watch Henry and Ritchie write in person at IAMPETH and they blew my mind. When they watch me write, they just laugh and tell me to keep practicing...

I wish all of these people would post more, but we'll just have to live with what they've given us. Enjoy!

Henry - https://www.instagram.com/oh.pointy.pen/

Olivia - https://www.instagram.com/bp.olivia/

iamu - https://www.instagram.com/iamuuuuuuuuuu/

Ritchie - https://www.instagram.com/ritchiewei/

Wish - https://www.instagram.com/wisholder/

Wingrey - https://www.instagram.com/wingrey_yihui/

[Trazo]

Wow!! Thank you very much, David. This is a fantastic present. It is close to midnight here, but tomorrow I will have breakfast with all these honorable penmen and penwomen.

[Erica McPhee]

Found this little gem in some notes on Zanerian.com and thought some of you may find it of interest.

“In 1888, Madarasz came out with the statement that he was making capitals with “muscular movement” or “arm-down” movement. So Mr. Zaner decided to practise “muscular movement” for a month, and discovered that his capitals had not changed, but that his small letters were more graceful, so he decided to stay by it, and since the, has used the “whole arm” movement very little except on “social occasions.” (Mr. Zaner says, “You must do it to get a wife; they all demand it.)

Mr. Zaner found that the muscular made the lower loops more slanting than the upper loops. Next, he discovered that he was using the fingers in the upper loops. Then, he either had to use the fingers on the lower loops to get the slant correct, so he worked the lower loops with the arm and got the slant correct, but then he found that he was using the arm on the upper loops.

Madarasz and Bloser and other fine writers used the fingers much. If we have long, supple, facile, fingers; we should use our fingers in professional writing; but if our fingers are short and “Dutch” we must use the arm. We must try for ourselves, but he wishes us to know that there are two ways for professional writing.

“When it comes to practical writing, however, he strongly favors “arm movement.”

Not quite sure what the wives are demanding but found the rest fascinating. 

[InkyFingers]

Who would in their right mind write "onion" for 1 minutes?  This example was written with a Biro on a normal desk.

As to pertaining to the writing condition that is not on a normal desk...say... on a counter while standing up when there isn't enough room for your arm to rest... You can use an alternative pivoting point....



I shifted my anchored point from the fleshy part of the forearm to the fleshy part of the palm.  However, you need to learn to glide a little with each word.  Whereas, the anchoring on the fleshy part of the forearm allows me to write the full span of the page in one go.  I get better speed and form when using the forearm then the flesh of the palm.

And yes, you can get very usable form with speed.  What really got met here was with Ziller's instructions and lots of support from friends at FF.

[Erica McPhee]

Excellent! And what a great show of improvement from your original post, too! 

[Trazo]

@Erica McPhee Thank you for that little gem. I am a lucky guy that found a wife before I started to be interested in arm movement. By the way, how do Dutch fingers look like?

@InkyFingers Thank you very much for the post. That proves that one can get good form writing a that high speed. Now I would like to know if you can write Onion at that speed from the very beginning and acquire such a good form without slowing down. I will go that way and see what happens. Life is about experimenting.

[jeanwilson]

Hi Trazo:

Trazo:
Back into BW, my purpose is just to (try to) acquire a new skill just for the sake of it. It would be great to be able to write with my arm quickly in such an elegant style, but it won't change my life at all and I won't get frustrated if I can not get there.

Me:
The only way to know if you would *get there* would be dedicate yourself to regular practice for a period of time. And you would never know how proficient you could become, until you put in the months or years. A lot of people hit plateaus. So, if you quit when you hit a plateau, you wouldn't know if it was truly the upper limit of your skills or merely a plateau.

It sounds like you are having so much fun trying a variety of things that it would be hard to devote yourself to just one thing. I don't think anyone can predict how long it takes to master a style. Some people are much better at picking up a new style and mastering it quickly. Others have to work harder at it. Often time, the true masters will scrutinize their own work and ponder that they might be able to improve.

Trazo:
I just have decided to go on the wild side and try to learn the way the old books advocates for, i.e. not sacrificing speed for the form. I don't know anything about the topic, but I think there are people who decide to climb a mountain through the most difficult route.

Me:
The degree of difficulty (or ease) is very subjective. You have to try each route and see how it feels. What works for me might not work for you.

Trazo:
 In addition, I keep wondering why the apostles of the BW kept insisting on the north face if there were easiest ways to climb the mountain. That is all.

Me:
For me -- the easiest way has always been tracing. That's one of the least mentioned methods. I'm not sure when smooth tracing paper was invented. One online source says mid-19th century. Onion skin would not have worked - too bumpy. So, if tracing paper would have been easier than all the other methods - it is not a common product and was probably never on anyone's radar. As I've mentioned previously, I know many scribes who will trace when they need to learn a whole set of caps from a font quickly for an addressing job - but traditional teachers usually mention tracing as a last resort.

I think your idea to walk on the wild side is a good one.  :-)

[daviddigi]

@Erica McPhee - Great quote from Zaner!

@InkyFingers - Onions are looking good!

[Lyric]

2
keeping your hand and wrist in a fixed position keeping your arm on the desk but the skin does not move, and it is the bone inside the arm that moves

I know this sounds creepy, but if you put your arm on the desk, you can see that you can actually move your hand in the motions for writing while keeping your skin in contact with the desk and the skin does not move.

I recall people comparing how much *play* they had in that movement - how far they could stretch the bone inside the arm.
When I do it, I can create perfect push pulls that fit comfortably between the lines of narrow ruled notebook paper.
They are much more accurate than sliding the arm, including the skin - up and down.

It is a weird little difference - but once I learned it, it's what comes more naturally to me.

If your purpose is to have pretty penmanship for your daily life, you don't really need to replicate the exemplar exactly.
It can be fun to have your own personal style sneak in here and there.
Personally, I do not care for the caps on any of the business hands - so, I have my own caps.

Sitting here I attempted this "2
keeping your hand and wrist in a fixed position keeping your arm on the desk but the skin does not move, and it is the bone inside the arm that moves" and truly the process is escaping me for my skin continues to move while I was attempting to will it not.

For some reason it sounds useful.  This is my first time reading of this.  Would be interesting to read further about it.

[jeanwilson]

Another way to feel how your bone can move inside your skin and muscle is to gently grasp the wrist of your dominant hand with your non-dominant hand and then move the dominant hand back and forth. Your skin and muscles have all kinds of stretch and flexibility that the bone does not. They are connected - but the bone has very little flexibility and the muscles are quite flexible. The older you are the stretchy-er your skin becomes, but that's a side issue. It has nothing to do with penmanship.

Once you see that your bone moves inside your arm - place your arm on the desk and press down slightly (or a lot) and then move the bone back and forth. Maybe you need to put more weight on the arm - and then try to move the bone to see that the bone has some wiggle room. Once you get the feel of the bone moving while the muscle and skin stays in one place - you can try doing the push-pulls and ovals.