Does Calligraphy Improve Your Handwriting?
Handwriting is an important aspect of life, and good handwriting does not come without effort and diligence, but what if your handwriting needs some improvement? If so, you may find yourself wondering if there are interesting ways to improve your penmanship? Does learning calligraphy improve your handwriting?
Handwriting and calligraphy are separate skills, but learning calligraphy can improve your handwriting if you let it. Deliberately applying calligraphy techniques to your handwriting will improve your pen control, pen grip, letter consistency, neatness, spacing, and flow of your writing.
Calligraphy can be beautiful when executed well and learning the various types of calligraphy have their own benefits to penmanship. That being said, calligraphy and daily handwriting are not the same things, so does calligraphy improve your handwriting? Let’s find out.
Can You Learn Calligraphy Even If You Have Bad Handwriting?
Calligraphy is a very high form of writing and is not generally used as a persons’ standard handwriting. The letterings, fonts, styles, techniques, and methods that are used in calligraphy are designed for this type of writing, and these are not how most people learn how to write normally.
For these reasons, many people assume that if they have poor everyday handwriting, that they will be unable to successfully learn to write in hand lettering styles such as calligraphy.
The fact is, the exact opposite is true. Due to the fact that learning to use calligraphy is so far removed from learning the techniques that we are taught and use for our everyday handwriting, that learning calligraphy from scratch is an entirely unique skill that has very little to do with the quality of a person’s handwriting.
If you have poor or difficult to read handwriting, do not let it hold you back from embarking on the journey that is learning calligraphy. Calligraphy is a separate skill, and it can be learned by anyone with patience, time, and the correct learning material.
Learning calligraphy in its various forms can be successfully accomplished regardless of how well you write in your everyday handwriting, and taking the time to learn this skill will open you up to a whole new world of writing techniques and styles that will improve every aspect of your writing.
Everyday handwriting is unique to each person, but calligraphy generally follows the same rules worldwide, and the same styles can be learned by anyone who has the inclination to do so.
Calligraphy is beautiful when done well, and anyone can learn to master this skill, regardless of previous experience and their normal handwriting.
Does Learning Calligraphy Improve Your Handwriting?
Handwriting and calligraphy are considered two vastly different forms of writing, and not many people use calligraphy as their main form of writing – this is almost impossible to do in the fast-paced modern world.
However, everyone needs to write, and everyone needs to read what someone has written. This supplies the need for every person to have at least somewhat legible handwriting.
This is often not enough for some of us, and there are many who want to improve their handwriting either because it is not legible or untidy or simply because there is still room for improvement.
As calligraphy is a very high form of hand lettering, many may turn to learning calligraphy to improve their handwriting, but does calligraphy improve your handwriting?
The short answer is yes, calligraphy does improve your handwriting. Learning calligraphy will improve the handwriting of any person who learns it, as the fundamental penmanship techniques that are required to use calligraphy well are techniques that can be applied to all writing.
That being said, for a person to improve their handwriting using calligraphy, it takes real effort and diligent application of the calligraphy techniques that they learn in their regular handwriting.
Calligraphy techniques do not naturally transfer to all styles of handwriting, and so to use calligraphy study to improve your handwriting takes a focussed decision to do so.
Calligraphy does improve your handwriting, but only if you let it. Otherwise, it will simply because a separate skill that you have learned, rather than being an improvement for your overall penmanship.
How Does Learning Calligraphy Improve Your Handwriting?
While there are some people who have disregarded learning calligraphy due to their untidy regular handwriting, there are some who are trying to improve their handwriting as much as they can.
This group of people may turn to learn to write in calligraphy in the hope that it will improve their regular handwriting along the way. Does calligraphy improve your handwriting?
The truth is, calligraphy and handwriting are different things. They are separate skills with different requirements, they take differing amounts of time to learn and master, and one is applicable and can be used every day while the other is a specialized skill for decorative and artistic purposes.
The difference between calligraphy and handwriting is a long list, and many who practice calligraphy will say that it does not improve handwriting because these two skills are so different from one another.
However, that is not entirely true. Calligraphy and handwriting are not the same, but at the end of it, they are both forms of writing.
Learning to write with different forms of calligraphy teaches the writer advanced writing skills and how to improve their penmanship overall.
This means that learning calligraphy is beneficial for everyday handwriting, and it does improve your handwriting, especially if you endeavor to apply the calligraphy techniques that you learn to your normal handwriting.
Calligraphy is beneficial for improving your handwriting by teaching, correcting, and improving many advanced writing skills. These advanced skills are vital for learning to write in calligraphy styles well and can be applied to all forms of writing.
These skills can be used for everyday handwriting, and they can be summarised as the following:
Control
Control is a vital aspect of any writing style, be it calligraphy or regular handwriting; how you control the pen, your fingers, your hand, and your wrist all determine how the letters will be shaped and formed when you write.
Control is also defined by how well you guide the pen along the paper to produce the most controlled letters possible.
Pen control is also integral for writing calligraphy well, and developing good pen control is a requirement for all calligraphy students. Pen control can be easily transferred to standard handwriting and can help make noticeable improvements.
This skill is vital for calligraphy, and everyone who learns these writing styles develop impeccable control in their writing.
This improved level of control will vastly improve a persons’ everyday handwriting, regardless of their current writing abilities.
Pen Grip
Learning calligraphy requires the writer to develop a precise and stable pen grip. Without a solid pen grip, controlling the pen well enough to write in this style is virtually impossible.
Pen grip is a vital aspect of all writing styles, and so the improved pen grip that is learned when taking on calligraphy is a good way to improve everyday handwriting as well.
A better grip leads to a more relaxed hand, which leads to more control when writing, which in turn produces much better and more legible handwriting.
Consistency
Another aspect of writing that is improved by learning calligraphy is consistency.
Consistency is very important with regards to the shape and size of letters, as well as how the letters end and begin. Keeping lettering consistent in every detail leads to the most impressive and most satisfying level of calligraphy.
Consistency is also vital in regular handwriting. If your writing is not consistent, one word written twice in a sentence may not be legible and lead to confusion, misreading of the sentence, or simply make your handwriting illegible.
The skill of consistency is crucial for writing well, and calligraphy teaches a high level of consistency. This skill can be easily transferred to regular handwriting and will make a massive improvement to how well the handwriting is executed.
Spacing
One of the biggest downfalls of the handwriting of many people is the spacing between letters and words. Without good spacing, even neat handwriting can be difficult to read clearly.
Calligraphy teaches a writer to focus on the spacing of characters in a word and words in a line. Developing a good eye for spacing while learning calligraphy will teach the writer to follow the same standard in their handwriting.
With improved spacing taught by calligraphy, a persons’ handwriting can improve significantly.
Smoothness
This is an aspect of writing that is not often considered, but the smoothness of a persons’ writing makes a big difference in how their writing turns out.
If a person can write very smoothly, their writing is more likely to be much more consistent and uniform, and their hands are likely to be less shakey when writing as well.
Good calligraphers have developed incredible smoothness in their writing, which is what makes their calligraphy look so crisp and clean.
This skill can be used to improve everyday handwriting as well, especially if the handwriting is cursive or uses some cursive elements in it.
The smoothness that is developed when learning calligraphy can help to improve anyone’s untidy handwriting.
Developing A Critical Eye
Another important skill that calligraphy teaches a writer is to look at their writing with a critical eye. This means closely inspecting their writing to look for any imperfections or areas that need improvement.
This critical eye can be used to look at a person’s handwriting to determine where improvements can, and should be made and how to implement them.
Learning calligraphy simply causes the writer to look at their writing more closely and teaches them ways to improve it.
Slowing Down
When writing calligraphy, especially when first learning, the writer must slow down their writing in order to properly execute the strokes and motions that are required to write calligraphy smoothly and correctly.
Most people have poor handwriting because they tend to write too quickly. Learning calligraphy will cause a person to slow down, take their time, and execute their writing at a higher level.
This same approach can be utelized to improve everyday handwriting, and applying this calligraphy technique in this area will help the writer improve quickly.
Overall Penmanship
When learning to use calligraphy well, especially when learning multiple forms of calligraphy, the overall penmanship of the writer improves significantly.
This includes everything from how they sit when writing, the angle of the pen, the pressure applied when writing, their tolerance for mistakes, their consistency, legibility, and every other aspect of writing.
Improved overall penmanship will improve a persons’ overall writing ability, including their standard handwriting. This is the biggest way that learning calligraphy can improve your handwriting.
Does Every Type Of Calligraphy Improve Your Handwriting?
Not many realize that there are many different styles of calligraphy, and each of them can be considered its own discipline.
The different styles of calligraphy include Copperplate Script, Italic Hand, Blackletter Script, English Script, Spencerian, and many others.
When most people imagine calligraphy, they think of styles such as Copperplate, Spencerian, and English Script. These are the styles of calligraphy that most people may be familiar with.
There are many hundreds of different varieties of calligraphy from all over the world, and each of them requires great skill and practice to execute well.
This means that learning any form of calligraphy can help to improve a persons’ handwriting.
However, there are some forms that may help more than others, such as Roman Writing, as it is quite similar to modern text handwriting and may help to make improvements more quickly.
Can You Replace Your Normal Handwriting With Calligraphy?
When learning calligraphy to improve their handwriting, the writer will put in so much time, effort, resources, and hard practice to learn calligraphy that they may wonder if it is possible to simply switch to using a form of calligraphy rather than their standard handwriting.
This may seem like a good idea, and technically it is possible, but practically speaking, replacing normal handwriting with calligraphy is not feasible.
Calligraphy takes time to write and often requires specialized writing implements that can not be used as everyday pens, such as dip pens and brushes.
Caligraphy is a specialized art form, and incorporating aspects of it, such as some of the techniques and the skill that it teaches the writer, into normal handwriting can be a great advantage, but attempting to use it as standard handwriting may not work very well.
Rather switch to writing cursive and learning to write a calligraphy style such as Copperplate Script, which will teach the writer to write cursive very well.
Conclusion
Calligraphy is beautiful. It is a written form of art, and those who have mastered it are in a league of their own.
However, being a master calligrapher does not make your handwriting perfect, as these two skills are very different.
Calligraphy can improve your handwriting, but you have to try and let it improve your handwriting by intentionally incorporating aspects of calligraphy techniques into your daily handwriting.
Learning any form of calligraphy will help the writer to improve their consistency, letter spacing, smoothness, pen grip, and overall penmanship while also helping them develop a critical eye to help themselves improve and a smoothness in their writing that will improve their handwriting even further.
Calligraphy can help you to improve your handwriting, but it takes years of work and dedication and diligent incorporation of the techniques to really make a difference!
