Cursive Sampler

It seems that no matter how well we write, most of us wish for better penmanship. This swap is to start us out with a simple refresher course on the art of cursive writing.

  I imagine my character as a young girl with an ink bottle and her favorite quill, practicing for hours until her back ached, her fingers are covered in stains, and all to produce a few basic strokes that we are all so familiar with. Writing does take time. Time to slow down and think about the letterforms you wish to create, time to practice with your instruments, time that seems to always be in demand for so many other things.

For this swap, we are going to look up a few examples of basic cursive writing. Then practice a bit before sending a one-page sampler onto our partner. If you are just starting out or unfamiliar with practicing cursive, use any writing instrument you are comfortable with. Ballpoint pen, pencil, gel pen. If you already have beautiful penmanship, maybe try writing with an implement you are unfamiliar with and practice with that.

HERE you'll find a wonderful blog article about improving your handwriting and HERE is a free pdf worksheet you can print out for practice. Another interesting video to watch is HERE. There are so many, once you start looking them up you are sure to find something that will inspire you!

For the sampler, please write out two full alphabets. One upper case and one lower case. Include the numbers 0-9 and any symbols you'd like. At the bottom write out one sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet, a pangram, you can find several options HERE. Be sure to sign your name beautifully at the bottom.

No judgment, just a chance to practice and relax your expectations. No one expects perfection! We'll just be exploring standard cursive for this swap, but in the future possibly expanding to other styles of writing such as copperplate or slanted nib calligraphy.

You can also google things like "cursive writing font generator" or "Free Script Fonts" as well to see all the different styles there are. Just pick one you like and try to emulate it!

I hope you'll join me in some quiet time to practice the art of penmanship and send your partner a "sampler" of your efforts. Please let us know if you have any questions