back to basics with pen + ink

From Kitty Burns Florey book Script & Scribble:

The pasta known as penne - Italian for "feathers" - actually look more like little writing instruments. The German word for quill pen is Feder and the French is plume, feathers all.

A couple of snowy nights ago I picked up a fountain pen and practiced basic lowercase alphabet forms. It was so relaxing that I hadn't realized an hour whipped by. There is something soothing about using a calligraphic pen like this. The shape of the nibs and the quality of the ink makes for some nice, clean, fat and thin lines. Writing can't help but look nice this way.

I'm an uppercase writer, so practicing lowercase in handwriting no less, felt so unnatural. But by concentrating on the basic forms, lines, connecting and repeating them, it was like drawing shapes over and over again (they just happen to turn out like letters). In the hours that I've spent playing with letterforms, I've gotten to know that I need more practice with writing the letters "r", "f" and "z".

I'm already onto my second ink cartridge and suspect  that I'll be playing with more pens and ink on a regular basis. My grocery and to-do lists are going to look a whole lot swankier.

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