PRACTICAL ITALIC HANDWRITING

[Photo of fountain pens superimposed on scanned italic writing rendition]

ITALIC HANDWRITING USING REGULAR FOUNTAIN PENS

The letter forms may not be as crisp or well formed as those produced using edged nibs, but with a light pen hold and delicate execution the writing can be quite elegant as illustrated in the following exemplars of my Practical everyday Italic handwriting using regular fountain pens:


Regular fountain pen rendition exemplar

The following exemplar illustrates the use of vintage fountain pens to render Renaissance Chancery -- Italic -- writing. Again, iridium tipped nibs are not best suited for this purpose. The Mabie Todd "Swan" pens I used have very flexible nibs, whereas the Waterman pen has a more rigid one -- and that shows in the heavier and clubbier letter forms.


Regular fountain pen rendition exemplar - red and black ink

Although excellent Italic handwriting can be rendered using fountain pens with regular iridium tipped nibs, the nuanced character of the writing exemplified by the thick and thin letter line variation produced by edged nibs is absent as shown by the following exemplar:


Edged nib rendition exemplar -- accentuated writing slope

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