As you may have guessed from my previous post, I am quite fond of everything that is related to typefaces and letterforms - with a special interest in handwriting - both in their standard and more creative expressions.
When it comes to calligraphy, it turns out that there are a few websites one may be curious to explore: for instance,
- http://www.calligraphyonline.org/index.html -- click and learn about the "Society of Scribes and Illuminators"... With such a name for their society the website deserves at least a visit, don't you think?
- http://www.clas.co.uk/index.html -- a recent discovery, hence I cannot say much about it; their summer course looks interesting...
- http://www.freehandwriting.net/ -- probably one of the first websites I found out about; I have never met Monica Dengo, but I had a chance to attend a short workshop run by one of her students and thought it was brilliant! Also, at least one of Monica Dengo's classes takes place in Venice... Not a bad location, huh?
Some days ago I thought of a connection I hadn't considered before. Penmanship as it is presented in the few above-listed websites stems from a rather specific - almost élite? - point of view on the matter: here writing by hand is not seen as a necessary skill allowing to communicate and express oneself, but rather as a more abstract activity - where sometimes one may even wonder whether the aesthetics became more relevant than the content. Thus it presupposes, by definition, that one learnt how to write in the first place, from the alphabet up to entire sentences and paragraphs, distinguishing between upper, lower case letters and so on. Have you ever asked yourself this question: how did I learn to write? How long was this process, and what was the evolution of my handwriting up to its present form?
I then decided I would look into this matter. With a scientific approach, of course.
And eventually, I drew the flowchart that is shown below.
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