Friday, July 24, 2009

handwriting & me

When I was in 10th grade I had a health class that was pivotal in my life for a couple of reasons.

1. it was so boring, it taught me that I really could sleep in any position, even sitting up with head rested in my palm, elbow on the desk. For like 20 minutes at a time. It also taught me that in the end, I didn't feel bad I was sleeping for so long, because MAN ALIVE that class was boring.

2. I carried a binder that had individual class folders inside. I would draw on this binder. And this health class was where, I feel, I really perfected my block lettering. I'm not so good with the drawing--or am I?? but I feel that despite having approximately zero innate talent, I developed a skill that will come in handy for the rest of my life. Below is exhibit A: the classic Jen block letters. (And, being obsessed with my name, I would mostly write my name, over and over, because it's cool, and i'm cool.)



I then branched out to other ways to write block letters. Exhibit B: the balloon font, which can also double as a bubble font, depending on if you draw balloon strings or added bubbles. Here I have combined the two.



I remember writing this in church back in the day and a lady said to me, "that is nice... now, where exactly is the light hitting these letters?" I stood there staring at the [seemingly] arbitrarily-placed glares. What the. Good point lady. Or was it? Little did she know, i had lighting everywhere, coming from all directions. Also, my glares don't cooperate with the physics of light waves and particles and things like such as.

Exhibit C: The creepy block letters. I recall also being obsessed with Word Perfect and learning how to Word process and enjoying all the fonts and writing stupid letters to people using the fonts. One font was called "Creepy" i believe, and it was a favorite. So i copied that in my lettering lessons. Behold:



I've often thought this could double as a wintery icicle font if you make the drips pointy, but I've never tried it.

Here is a hodgepodge of pictures depicting how i write.

Jen:



sometimes i dot the j for extra fun:


the other day i was signing an attendance roll and I signed my name using the classic crafty cutesy font. It took me a while and people behind me jeered me, but it was worth it:



I feel that the pen i use is a big factor influencing the way I write. Here is a sample of my handwriting:


I'm also a fan of backward writing. It's very easy and I used to write letters to people this way so they had to use a mirror. Secret code like. And speaking of pivotal moments, here is a startling discovery i made while studying drooling/sprawled out on the table in the library in college. It takes a bit of imagination but still. Check it out:



If I lazily write my name in cursive backward and then flip it upside down, it's sort of my name, frontwards!!! I know. I know.

Well, there you go.

5 comments:

Scoresbys said...

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but one of your balloons escaped to the bubble side. Otherwise, stellar work. Did you have Allred for Health? I don't know how he did it, but he made an hour and a half seem like at least three.

)en said...

YES! oh man... i just had no idea his class was a vortex where time and space stood still. funny stuff.

Natalie R. said...

That's awesome. I'm not good at bubbles, but I really like writing in blocks with shadows. Or sometimes I'll put only the shadow, leaving the reader to guess what the rest of the letter is! Fun stuff. :0)

Martha said...

I love that you say, "like such as." My roommates and I use that on a daily basis. It has become part of our vocabulary. Sometimes I have to remember that it's not actually correct grammar, even though I use it often.

Alanna said...

I suffered through a summer term class at BYU (meaning it was two hours long instead of the usual 50 minutes) that was so boring I would draw pie charts and fill in pieces of it every fifteen minutes. I wish I would have thought of these fun little exercises, because then I might have actually GOTTEN something out of that class! (Rather than a bunch of filled-in circles!) If I ever go for that PhD...