Bam, it's Mr. Tarrou. Besides mathematics, I like calligraphy. And, there's a few different styles of writing that I can do.
The one that I use most commonly now, is basically, just how I write, which is sort of this flowy, cursive.
I didn't write like this all the time, I was first exposed to calligraphy in a two-dimensional art class in Middle School.
And it kinda stuck with me, obviously.
And, or at least I hope its obvious.
And, in my mid twenties or late twenties, somebody I worked with, asked if I would do their wedding invitations.
So I thought, ok well I could write two or three different ways, it was a pretty big job,
So I just went to the internet, and you know, found a sheet of sample fonts, and just printed it off, and it had like twenty different ways to write on it.
and I was like, just pick one, I can do anything you want.
Well she picked this flowy cursive, I don't remember the exact name for this.
It reminds me of like Edwardian Script, in my Word program.
And I was like... well.. ok! So I went home thinking, I don't write like that...
I did a lot of practice and I started the invitations, and by the time I was done, it was like over 300 invitations.
I looked back at the first 15 invitations, and they were terrible.
So I learned how to write like this, in my late twenties, so it's never too late to change, or hone your writing skills.
And so I'm doing this video for a couple of reasons:
Mainly... a viewer just recently asked me to show the alphabet of all the capital letters...
so that they can practice, and I think that's so cool.
I see terrible handwriting, I just looked at all of my students today and out of 3 classes that I was teaching
only 9 or so kids were actually using cursive, everyone else was printing. Which can be really neat but
man, it's a lot slower than writing in cursive.
So, I'm not going to pretend that I'm a writing, a handwriting expert but
I find the most comfortable way of holding a pen is just to simply rest it between your thumb and first finger, fore-finger if you will,
and just loosely and comfortably let that pen or pencil rest on, I let it rest on my second finger.
and, you know, just hold it like that. I've seen students nowadays with so little training in Elementary School of how to write
holding pens and pencils in such crazy ways that I can't imagine it was comfortable over a long period of time
So... a calligraphy pen, I'm gonna use two piece of chalk. You can do this with just a pen or pencil as well.
This flowy cursive just looks good no matter what you use to write it with.
But if you use a calligraphy pen, it's going to be very different if you're left handed
because you need a tip that is chiseled at a 45 degree angle.
But if you are right handed, you want a calligraphy tip.
Now you can get a real calligraphy pen or a marker that's going to have a square face on it.
And I'm going to hold two pieces of chalk sideways to simulate this sort of square face.
And you want that to be, depending on your style of writing, usually around 40 to 45 degrees.
I think when I wrote this it's a little bit off.
But as you go through this hoard of calligraphy there are thin lines that all generally should,
if I'm doing this correctly, go at about the same angle or basically parallel.
And all of these are around 45 degrees off of horizontal.
And one of the hardest things to learn to do with calligraphy is to keep that pen at that 45 degree angle.
But this handwriting style looks great whether it's pen, pencil or calligraphy pen.
So when you do calligraphy with these pens you want to, as much as possible, pull the pen.
Now you can get away with pen or pencil, you can sort of push or pull and everything is fine.
But with these calligraphy nibs you want to pull them.
So let's get this erased.
I'll start writing through the capital letters and show you that capital alphabet.
And hopefully you guys can play around with it and see if you can't work on this handwriting style yourself.
Now, I'm not a handwriting teacher like I said so I'll try and do my best to talk through these letters
and, you know, I'll give you the demonstration of course
but I'm going to write most of these like I use with chalk and a pen or pencil.
If you're writing with a proper calligraphy nib again that you have to dip or a fountain pen
You must, must, must, must pull them, so it takes more brush strokes.
So for an A, and I'll show this like super proper first, which is pull it. So...
1...give you a hat.
2, and that's the left and right hand side of the A of course.
Now for the loop in the center, you have to again do...
1... and then 2
And there's your A
If you're using a pen or pencil or chalk you can get away with pushing the thing.
So you can kinda just go here and push against it and then loop around.
And this tail becomes sort of the start of the next letter.
So, if I wanted to write the word "And" with a capital A for some reason,
Then I would just hop here and go there's a "d" or a "n" and then a "d", there's the word "And" with a capital A.
Alright, let's take a look at B.
Now B is... and you can make these long flourishes as long as you like.
And the longer they are, the more they flow over the other letters, the fancier the final script will look.
So B...I like to get a nice long sort of hat, if you will, to it. And there's the left side.
And then 1...and then 2.
Well that's not 2 strokes with a calligraphy pen. Again you would have to pull it so...
1...2...3...and you have to stop down here, and then come around...4...and 5.
So that would be 5 strokes with a proper calligraphy nib, you can get away with just 2
and keep it flowing with a pen or pencil or chalk.
C is just two movements. One and two and if you are using a calligraphy nib, you are gonna have to come back over here and pull it over three.
Again if you are using a pen or pencil just loop that thing around.
Thats A B C... D
E
That's a nice easy simple E.
If you wanna add some flourish to it give it a big hat or maybe just get a little more crazy.
Make it a big hat, just a make it more crazy
Ah you know practice your handwriting and just see how flowing and how many flourishes you want to put into your writing.
F, at least the way I write them is one, two, three, and there's your cursive F
G, now I just did that in one motion, proper calligraphy, that's one and two, and then three.
And if you think that looks like a G, and it is a standard cursive G, but if you're not really quite sure what it is,
once you start adding more to it, and put these capital letters in context, it will make them easier to read.
The fancier they get sometimes they get hidden with all the flourishes. So that's a capital G for "ghost"!
Let's get onto H.
I
My I's look very similar to J's. It's just a matter of how big you make this bottom loop.
So that's an I.
And then J is going to be the same motion to start with. So, one, two, so there's an "I" really.
But then you come up here and put a big old tail on it. So that's J.
So H, I, J. K. The way I like to draw them is one, two, and then really make the top of this really long and
reach over the rest of the word. So, K. And then it's like, "Do you know how to do calligraphy?"
So, H, I, J, K, L, one, two, three, four, five. If you are doing all the proper pulling brush strokes.
M, and my M's I like to really swing if I'm trying to be fancy, really swing down
and again let that get underneath the word and swing under the bottom and underline it
So, maybe.
Now with these flourishes, the letters can stay separate and I could have maybe
connected the M with y the and loop it together and tie the front of the word with the back
You can get really creative with these. So, L, M, N
It looks really simple, I hope these look good to you and it looks pretty simple but it takes a lot of practice
to get these to flow right and to get all these thin lines to be in the same direction, as much as possible.
So, again, many, many hours of practice once you get this alphabet down. So we're at N.
Now, there's not really much you can do with an O, but you've got just a couple of loops.
Maybe you can put a little loopty doop at the top, but O is kinda boring, at least as far as I can figure it out.
So, that's my O, P and again you can kinda add a flourish here or swing that top a little bit farther over
the word but, if you don't like the way this P looks you can just do all different ones, let's see here
It's your hand-writing, pick some flourishes and a look that works for you. So, O, P, Q, well, I just like to make my Q's
look like an O with a tail on it just because it's so much easier to read otherwise a cursive Q kinda looks like a
fancy 2, there aren't many people that a familiar or comfortable with cursive Q's so I do a more standard,
boring O with a little tail on it. So, Q, R.
Now, I did a lot of strokes together opposed to using a real calligraphy pen and if that seems a little boring
you can come up here and add a little bit more of a flourish into all the tails of all the R's and whatever
So, Q, R, S, T. Again, lots and lots of different ways to write those T's, I just like to make it look like a standard
T with a nice flowing top on it.
Let's begin with the U (inaudible), 1, 2, 3. V, W, X. Probably be a little more creative but I just do that for X
Y, and then Z. Now, there's two ways to write a Z, there's just the regular Z or there's the cursive Z
which going against my argument with the Q, not that many people are familiar or comfortable with the capital
Z but It kinda looks like that, we're going to the Zoo!
So, I'm at the end of the alphabet and I'd just like to say...
Thank you for watching!