Writing of the hand

From the dawn of time, people have been developing various ways of communicating and corresponding effectively. God gave us the gift of speech, and also gave us different languages across the world. Man has created variations of these different languages. However, another form of communication that has consistently developed throughout time is handwriting. One might even consider it the original art form, as handwriting is unique to each person. Once more contributing to my theory in my first post that everyone is creative in their own way!

My version

of print.

Anywho, with the dawning of new technology every day and society's increasing reliance upon the likes thereof, a slow decline in the art of handwriting has begun. Each day in my profession as a teacher, I get to see some of the best and worst handwriting. But, who is to say that even the "chicken scratch" in this realm is not art though? I mean, do we not use fonts on the computer that look like poor handwriting to set ourselves apart in a design or logo? I have no doubt that there are several people who may argue this point.



My version of cursive.

 

All of the thousands of fonts that we have today are stemmed from various artists' renderings of people's handwriting. I personally LOVE to hand write things now and take pride in it, which has not always been the case. I have always been a perfectionist to a certain degree, hence as I was growing up, sometimes writing was a painstaking chore, especially cursive writing. In my high school days, because I did like cursive, but hated writing it fully (lack of fluidity), I would mix print and cursive. However, in college of all places, I was able to hone my cursive handwriting skills, and became rather fluent. Now, I absolutely love writing in cursive, and it is actually fun for me.

While I love writing in cursive, and the fluidity of it, I would have to say that my mixture of print and cursive is more creative. Thinking about it, I suppose since I loathed writing in cursive as a child, but liked the idea of it, I incorporated the letters that I liked writing in cursive into my print. So, in that case, nobody who mixes both uses the same ratio of letters of cursive and print. It is

A quote by yours truly,
using cursive/print mix.

fascinating really. No matter how sloppy or neat, large or microscopic, rigid or bubbly, we all unconsciously create our own form of handwriting... our own font... our own typeface.



I would like to encourage YOU to, if you don't already write fluently and fluidly (and legibly), start writing in cursive. Here is a page that you can go to to get some practice. It has examples of the alphabet in print and cursive in the "A Beka-style" of handwriting. The cursive writing methods of this style are my favorite of those that I have perused. So, whether you want to brush up on some of your letters, or improve upon your handwriting, relax, have fun, and don't forget to let your creativity ensue!