Workshop on Handwriting

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In the past few years, I’ve been teaching at a series of workshops “The Art of Beautiful Handwriting” and I would like to thank you all for your participation.

I’ve been teaching handwriting education since 2005 and I have been working with students of all ages, kindergarteners, elementary school students, middle school students, high school students to adults.

My experience with all of them was great. Most of my students end up being satisfied with their handwriting.

Now I’d like to share my knowledge with those who would like to improve their handwriting.

Workshop Schedule: June 12th, 2-5 pm  (open go until 7pm) June 19th, 2-5 pm (open go until 7pm) June 26th, 2 -5pm (open go until 7pm) July 3rd ,2 – 5 pm (open go until 7pm) July 10th ,2- 5 pm (open go until 7pm) July 17th ,2 – 5pm (open go until 7pm) July 24th ,2- 5 pm (open go until 7pm) July 31st ,2 – 5 pm (open go until 7pm) August 4th ,2 – 5 pm (open go until 7pm) August

There are basically two ways to improve your handwriting. The first is to learn a new style of handwriting. The second is to practice with your old one until it is beautiful.

I have never been satisfied with my handwriting, so I tried both methods. My original style used to be called copperplate, but since I hadn’t practiced it in years by the time I went to the workshop, it was more like nickel-and-dime plate. It was neater than most peoples’ handwriting, but not much better than they could do if they tried. That meant I had no reason to keep using it; I just didn’t like how it looked and couldn’t think of any way to make it better.

The aim of the workshop was to learn to write beautifully. This is not something that most people need to learn now, but it seems like a good idea to spend some time on it.

There are various ways to improve your handwriting:

1. You could take a penmanship course (there are several on-line).

2. You could use a calligraphy set. (I find these very awkward.)

3. You could try this exercise: Take out a sheet of paper and print one sentence as fast as you can, without worrying about the shape or style of the letters. Then print another sentence, trying as hard as you can to make it look better than the first one. Then do another sentence, and another, until you have printed five or six altogether and are satisfied with them. Then print them again from memory, trying to duplicate the shapes you have already made, but not worrying about whether they look exactly the same (they won’t). Repeat this for at least ten pages of writing.–Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style

4. Or you could sit down with a pen and notebook and work on your handwriting for an hour every day for a couple of months.–Adam Twardoch

Beautiful handwriting is a lost art. It’s not that you could never find beautiful handwriting, but you have to look for it and it’s hard to find. You see ugly handwriting everywhere.

The good news is that it is possible to improve your handwriting and make your writing more beautiful; all you need is practice, patience and guidance.

Handwriting has been around for thousands of years, but the technology to write fast has been around for less than a hundred years. Before that, people were forced to slow down their writing process and therefore were forced to practice more and take handwriting more seriously. They were forced to be more deliberate and careful in their writing because they couldn’t just rush through it. With computers we don’t have this problem anymore, yet our digital age seems to be producing uglier handwriting than ever before.

Trying to mimic machine-made print is at the root of most bad habits in handwriting today. This can be fixed with a little bit of effort, though. It’s easy to learn how to write beautifully if you know what you’re doing, so I’d like to outline the basics here so that you can avoid the common pitfalls of learning how to write by yourself.

The workshop was run by an American woman who had lived in Japan for 15 years and now answers questions on Quora, which is like Yahoo Answers but not as bad. She used to be a calligrapher, or someone who writes really fancy letters. (I thought calligraphy was what happens when you let a spider illustrate your Christmas cards, but that’s another story.)

Telling me how to write better letters was a great idea, because I always have trouble writing things. But when I tried to write down the capital F on my notebook she said there is no such thing as a capital F and that the first time she ever saw one was on her wedding invitations and it looked fake. She said most people are better with lower-case letters. My handwriting is terrible. I can’t even do lower-case letters well!

She suggested I get off the computer and just practice drawing lines, and after an hour of drawing lines I did feel like I had improved a little bit, but still not enough to feel like writing anything longer than my name.

But it did make me think about why handwriting has become so bad all over the world. The answer is: computers. If you want to become a calligrapher in this day and age

Beautiful handwriting is art, and art is subjective. What one person finds beautiful, another may not. But if you do find beautiful handwriting attractive, I’d like to share with you a free workshop that will help you develop your own handwriting skills.

Hands on Writing Workshop, led by me (Bryan Pardo) takes you from basic strokes and letterforms to a sample page of calligraphy. You’ll learn the theory behind each stroke and letterform, as well as the practical aspects of putting each letter together.

Any level of skill is welcome! Beginners who sign up will learn the basics, while experienced calligraphers can use this as a review to practice and improve their own handwriting.

The workshop will be held online via Skype on July 19-20 (Saturday-Sunday). For more information on how to join the workshop and what supplies to buy, please visit my blog: http://www.handsoneveryday.com/blog/the-art-of-beautiful-handwriting/

This is a report on a workshop which took place at the end of October 2013 in Seattle, Washington. The theme of the workshop was Calligraphy and Typography (and everything in between). I had been wanting to attend this workshop for quite some time, but it had been sold out every year.

I’d seen what the participants in previous workshops had created, and knew that I wanted to attend this one. The teachers were known for their beautiful artwork, so I knew that I would be well-served with great instruction.

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