@schin I am using a big lefa pad (that's stuff mad of old leather scraps and latex, much cheaper than leather) + a blotting paper I fix on this (because of all the ink blots
). Sometimes I think the blotting paper is not smooth enough for gliding … it only works with bare arms. But I like the sort of cushioning the pad provides.
@Faeleia I think it looks really good! About the shades – I also think you mustn't be afraid of flexing the nib a bit more, it is a very flexible nib! I think I wouldn't use a Brause Rose, because with that x-height the hairlines are really too thick. If you practice bigger and like the nib (I do too!), then why not? I find that with nib recommendations it is as with many other things – what the one person loves and can't work without, the other finds unsuitable for the same task!
Barbara Calzolari, who learned her Spencerian from Michael Sull, and as far as I know follows very closely his teaching methods, recommended me to practice the lowercase letters
and the capitals again without any shades (I was halfway through the practice pads by M. Sull when I took part in her workshop). I thought it was already looking quite ok, but I must say while I still don't feel very confident with Spencerian, this practising without shades made my letterforms much more precise.
She also said after looking at my practice sheets, that I needed to work on my ovals. I am afraid I have preached this over and over here in the Forum, but it was a huge eye-opener for me, because the oval exersices I knew were these super fast connected lines of ovals, and I had done them a lot, but while I personally find they are a good way to loose up a bit, they help nothing regarding precision, and that is what is needed if I want do do more flourished, ornamental capitals. So she showed me some oval exercises, and wrote them rather slowly! I think speed comes later. But that may also depend much on each single person – I know that Erica says her lines get shaky when she writes slowly.
I also forced myself to write rather big (about 5 mm x-height which with Spencerian is huuuge imho), because any flaws are much better so see
! And easier to correct. After that writing smaller became easier and I hope a bit prettier too.
So, that's just some methods that helped me to improve. Sorry for writing so much
.
