….and the letters are all about ovals, loops, straight lines, curves, and quick lifts of the drill. Now! You see it isn’t as complicated as you thought.
For example… 
THE LOWER CASE a is an oval that begins at the top guideline. Place your drill at 12:00 and with a steady, slightly heavy pressure, make the left side of the oval. As you approach the baseline, reduce the pressure to as light as possible that will still show. That transition to a hairline stroke should come up off the baseline, with a matching curve on the right side, to finish the oval at 12:00. Make the stroke slowly to create a seamless connection at the top. You should have a perfectly-shaped oval.
The second stroke is a straight line that slants as shown. It should be the same weight/thickness as the heavy part of the oval. As the drill gets to the baseline, make a smooth turn right, then with a quick little motion, lift the drill off the surface. NEVER stop the stroke on the surface that’s being engraved.
Practice those two strokes over and over, individually, then put them together. The second stroke should cover the thin part of the oval. If you’ve made the oval narrow enough at the bottom, you’ll create a small triangular opening at the bottom right of the finished letter when the second stroke is finished.
Practice these two strokes on paper with a pencil first. When you have it down and can make the letter consistently with a pencil, try it with the drill on flat glass.
This is the way we spend the first day in the Seminar, developing the entire lower case alphabet. Then we progress to the upper case, the same way.
It should be easy to see that handwriting has NOTHING to do with the way these letters are formed. It’s all a method, using a few simple strokes, made in a certain way, that get repeated over and over. Look at the alphabet and see the numerous places ovals and parts of ovals occur.
Notice how the loops at the top of the b, h, k, and l are all exactly the same. Notice how the little quick lifts…serifs…occur. That same stroke is at the end of the a, c, d, e, h, i, l, m, n, p, r, t, and u. Learn that ONE part very well and you’ll have a major part of 12 letters under your belt!
The bottom loops on the g, j, f, q, y, and z are all the same. Well, the one on the q is backwards!
As with anything requiring some dexterity with the hands, it takes practice to be consistent. Muscle memory is a great part of it all. Your fingers ‘learned’ how to tie shoelaces long, long ago. You tie your laces now without a conscious thought how you do it. Same with buttoning your shirt. Same with the drill. Once you have the shapes of the letters burned into your head, your hand and finger muscles begin to ‘remember’ how to make every letter with great ease.
If this is helpful and interesting, let me know. There are twenty-five more lower case letters I can talk about in this column from time to time. Fifty-one with the capitals!
These are the DNA…the building blocks…of an amazing skill and even more amazing income for knowing it having people and businesses pay you for it!
Good luck.
-Ken
And, of course, if this should convince you the method IS learnable, get on the fast track and come to a class where we can put it all to practical use. We talk lots about marketing and we’ll get you productive in three days. THREE DAYS.
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