Now the serious work of using and applying the correct movement begins.
Before attempting to make any part of drill one, review lessons one,
two, and three, and give the closest possible attention to position,
muscular relaxation, and penholding. Don’t practice before you know how.
With the left hand, move the paper to the left three times at equal
intervals, in the progress of the pen across it.
=Drill 1=
[Illustration]
Letting the distance between the two ruled lines, three-eighths of an
inch apart, represent one space in height, any part of this drill should
be two spaces high. Look at these drills until you have a good mental
picture of the height, proportions, and general appearance.
In connection with the straight line part of the drill, study closely
diagrams twenty-six and twenty-seven on page eighteen. There is no value
in this straight line exercise unless practiced with a forward and
backward motion, from and toward the center of the body, with the paper
held in the correct position.
If you cannot make the several parts of drill one high enough at first
with pure muscular movement, practice without touching the pen to the
paper until you have developed more muscular freedom.
In the second line of drill one, the traced oval should first contain
six, and later, as a lighter movement is developed, ten revolutions. In
this drill it will be well to make first the straight line on the
correct slant, and then the oval enclosing it. This order may be changed
frequently and the ovals made first. This is an important drill as it
has a very specific bearing upon slant.
=To the Teacher=: It may be profitable for third, fourth, and fifth year
pupils to spend the practice periods of one week in studying and
practicing the two movement drills given in this lesson, reviewing each
day everything that has gone before. Pupils in the sixth, seventh, and
eighth years, and in high schools classes should be able to progress
more rapidly. It is not safe to say how rapidly, as that depends upon
the knowledge of the teacher, the mental caliber of the pupils, their
interest in the work, the length of the daily lessons, and the amount of
the right kind of outside practicing that pupils do.
[Illustration: No. 28]
Study the accompanying illustration, number twenty-eight. Notice the
direction in which the upper part of the penholder points, the distance
between the elbow and the side, the self-supporting position of the body
in the chair, and the distance of the eyes from the paper. Do not forget
that the force that moves the hand and carries the pen along without
bending the fingers is above the elbow. It is not located in the
fingers, hand, wrist, or forearm.
The fingers hold the pen easily and firmly without pinching; the third
and fourth fingers are bent backward and form the movable rest under the
hand; neither the wrist nor side of the hand touches the paper, and the
arm should rest all the time on the largest portion in front of and near
the elbow.
If the paper you are using has lines eight inches long, divide the page
in the center from left to right with a dot; then divide the halves in
the center with other dots. Beginning at the left for the straight line
drill, make one hundred downward strokes to the first quarter mark, and
continue in the same manner for each quarter. Thus, four hundred
downward strokes and, of course, an equal number of upward strokes
should be made in the four sections extending across a line. See drill
one; page nineteen.