PDA

View Full Version : Adventures in calligraphy, aka Shugpug learns "pretty"



ShugPug
August 29th, 2017, 12:06 PM
I said in my intro post that I wanted to improve my fairly dreadful penmanship - time's gone on, and now it's time to put my money where my mouth is!

I've decided on the fairly loose cursive course on loopsandtails.com - so dived in with the initial exercises and "A" on today's lunch break ("a" to follow tomorrow). I'm going to use my every day broad nib (nail) to learn, then once I've got it to a standard I'm happy with, add flex or brush pens.

I also had something of a brainwave over dinner - Mrs Shugpug suggested I wrote out practices, once I get there, of A B, A B C, etc as time goes on to make sure I don't forget the earlier letters. Whilst this makes perfect sense, I doubted that the frequency of letters was an inverse correlation to their position in the alphabet! A quick Google later, and it turns out (unsurprisingly) that I was not the first to have had this thought. Samuel Morse got there by a considerable margin, but I'm happy to take his data set and adopt it for my purposes! When I have learnt A and a, I shall go on to E and e, then T and t and so on!

Photos will follow, when I've got more to show you than, A...

VertOlive
August 29th, 2017, 08:46 PM
Kudos to you for your efforts. We'd love to see your "A" if you care to post it!

Sammyo
August 29th, 2017, 09:16 PM
Good luck... that's not right... Well done on putting in the effort. I look forward to seeing your progress.

ShugPug
August 29th, 2017, 10:28 PM
Kudos to you for your efforts. We'd love to see your "A" if you care to post it!

That's kind of you - here's the "A" from a sharpie on a bit of no - name paper... I'll work on consolidating this, and learning the "a" today [emoji4]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170830/1b1a385651f0e1aef85625dc08ac5ad0.jpg

Lady Onogaro
August 29th, 2017, 10:44 PM
I think it's quite nice!

LeFreak
August 30th, 2017, 02:52 AM
Very nice!

naimitsu
August 30th, 2017, 02:06 PM
A little shaky, but it looks good. Better than my "A", and my name starts with an "A"!

ShugPug
August 30th, 2017, 02:22 PM
Apparently I got Sharpie ink on the desk - sounds like a good reason to get a writing pad!

younricw
August 30th, 2017, 06:51 PM
Very nice "A" I like that style!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

ShugPug
September 1st, 2017, 01:06 PM
Carrying on with the learning and the practice - my last week in my current job this week so it's been a little interesting to find spare time but I've now learned A, a, E and e [emoji3]. E is my favourite so far [emoji4] https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170901/0281fb2a381656b46369467228271730.jpg

ShugPug
September 9th, 2017, 02:20 PM
After an enforced week off for a course, and a room without a desk, I've now learned T and t. I can make words and everything now 😀

ShugPug
November 9th, 2017, 02:57 PM
Cross posting the image from a different thread - I've nearly got to the end of the alphabet now, and am starting be able to write with a little more fluency and speed, so mixing things up a little and trying different kinds of pens. I tried brush pens initially - kudos to those that use them, but I do not have enough control yet, so I've tried a flex nib instead, which I think I could really get on with as it's not that different to a "normal" pen. I have a stub on it's way (I've splurged for my most expensive pen yet - TWSBI's special edition Gold Al Mini - can't wait!), but prefer the idea of the flex at least - I'll wait and see whether the actuality of the stub is better...

I've really enjoyed learning the new alphabet, and have definitely seen improvements in my every-day writing as well - which was the original point. www.loopsandtails.com is definitely recommended!

Marsilius
November 11th, 2017, 02:24 PM
My bête noire is the cursive small "r".

BayesianPrior
November 11th, 2017, 02:48 PM
My bête noire is the cursive small "r".

Also known in my alphabet as "i without a dot" :)

Marsilius
November 11th, 2017, 02:54 PM
My bête noire is the cursive small "r".

Also known in my alphabet as "i without a dot" :)

That makes me feel better. I usually resort to splitting my words after the "r". I periodically practice it, but it ends up being the spot where good intentions give way to where the road is heading in my writing.

ShugPug
November 11th, 2017, 03:37 PM
My bête noire is the cursive small "r".

Also known in my alphabet as "i without a dot" :)

That makes me feel better. I usually resort to splitting my words after the "r". I periodically practice it, but it ends up being the spot where good intentions give way to where the road is heading in my writing.My double "r"s still look a bit off. Awkward when there is one in my surname...

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

Marsilius
November 11th, 2017, 08:09 PM
You are doing great. Yep, I have an r in my last name, too.

Paddler
November 14th, 2017, 07:33 AM
Thanks for the Loops and Tails link.
My summers are busy times, what with all the yard work, gardening, canoeing, music concerts, etc. and so my writing consists mainly of first drafts, hastily written, and stored in a notebook. Winter is when I get to edit and transcribe stories to my journal books. After a summer of slash and dash writing, my hand is almost illegible, even to my own eyes. So this is the time when I practice at making my writing intelligible to other people. It is deadly dull work, about like walking on a treadmill. I wish there was a way to shortcut it.