The Palmer Method: Denting my ink supply

In an attempt to develop a neat, traditional cursive hand, I've turned to the Palmer Method. My overzealous ink buying over the past couple years is really going to pay off, since the first few exercises in the book apparently use up a lot of ink.

I'm going to use one pen (Namiki Falcon with SF nib) and a Clairefontaine notebook for practice, which will get filled with all sorts of colorful scribbling as I swap inks each time I drain the converter. Anyone here have success in improving their handwriting using this method? Iampeth.com and Palmer Method get recommended quite a lot in The Nib.

-Andy

The Palmer method seems like a very good choice for modern, non-flex, fountain pens. It is neat and very attractive. Let us know how that instructional approach works. Sometimes, the "traditional" approaches can be a bit pedantic, though I suspect your choice is no match in that category to the Spencerian copybooks (reprinted by Mott Media).

I would suggest that you not use your expensive Clairefontaine for practice scribbling. Ordinary photocopy paper would seem to do just fine for that. Save the Clairefontaine for serious correspondence, journalling, etc.

I recently ordered a copy of "Write Now: The Getty-Dubay Program for Handwriting Success". I've been struggling with Palmer for 60 years and it's time to try something radically different. Getty-Dubay isn't elegant or fancy, but at least it's legible. Anything's got to be an improvement over my chicken scratches.

I've also got a copy coming of the Getty-Dubay book. My general music students are going to get the chance to learn this script style as they take their notes from the board. I also bought their fonts. This lets me use their script on all of my slides. Should be an interesting experiment.

I've found my Falcon to be a wet writer in general, so it's a good choice if the idea is to use up some ink.

I just competed the Write Now! Book (the Getty Dubay book for adults,and was very pleased with the results.

Andy, I don't think it will use much ink at all. I'd not waste good paper on practice . . . I'd just use ok (ish) paper. Totally up to you of course. From my experience these exercises work.

I should mention that the Clairefontaine notebook is the 14.8x21cm staple-bound version with a cardstock cover. It's nice paper but only cost a couple Euros. I have a stack of these things.

-Andy

I used Palmer Method and found it quite nice. The straight lines and obliques does tend to use up some ink, but I didn't sit there scribbling for an hour. I found some cheap spiral bound notebooks with a decently smooth paper finish that did not clog up my pens or cause my italic points to dig in.

I ended up replacing several of the majuscule letters with ones of my own that worked with my style. Are you using Palmermethod.com or iampeth.com?


-Xander

One thing about the Palmer method I always liked was the "uncrossed T" a the end of words.



... oh, I don't think this will "dent" your ink supply. Ink is basically water, and thus basically formless and incapable of being dented.


Be ink, my friend.