I WANT THIS IN WRITING…

Hand lettering or “cheater” calligraphy is a great mental exercise. For those of us that had to learn cursive writing in school we just did what we had to without realizing the developmental benefits we were receiving. Some of those cognitive benefits were that it opened neurological pathways, develops sensory skills, increased retention, improved spelling, organization skills and self confidence along with created a free flow of thought onto paper.

Now, it’s time to activate that brain with a writing exercise. In your own handwriting (whatever it looks like is fine) pay attention to the downward strokes as you are writing your name. Rewrite it as many times as you need to in order to see what your down strokes are. Make little down arrows next to your down strokes if that is helpful. Once you’re done writing your name and you know where all your downward strokes are, go back to the first downward stroke and thicken that line, do this to all of the remaining downward strokes. It’s easy and you will be amazed at how quickly you pick it up. The side effect is that you may lighten up on yourself about your “horrible” handwriting. For any young people who did not have the advantage of learning cursive writing in school, this can be done with printed or non-cursive letters and it will help you begin to learn cursive writing or even calligraphy.

Below are a few quick and imperfect samples of my hand lettering and my regular handwriting.