Ascender Loops

The climb

Seven letters in the alphabet have to get above the midline: l, h, k, b, f, t and d. They fall into two families, and the join into each is a matter of how steeply you climb and whether you loop.

All of them are entered the same way: the exit stroke of the previous letter, an undercurve on the baseline, keeps rising and turns into the upstroke. That is the whole join. What follows depends on the letter. The overview of the individual letters is on the pages for l, h, k, b, f, t and d.

Getting in

The connector from the previous letter is an undercurve. In “el”, the e finishes on the baseline and the exit rises without stopping, curving upward until it reaches the top line. The line is a single stroke from the baseline to the top. If the previous letter’s exit is short, as it is after “i” or “u”, make sure it still has room to bend into the climb.

Two things make or break the entry.

1. The slant. An upstroke that leans more than the rest of the word makes the l look like it is falling over. Aim for the same angle as the downstrokes in your handwriting.
2. The curve. The climb should bend, not be a straight diagonal. A diagonal produces a pointed top, and the loop that follows is cramped.

The loop itself

At the top line, the stroke turns left and comes back down, crossing the upstroke at roughly the midline. The loop is narrow, with a clearly open interior, so it is a loop and not a blob. The downstroke is straight, on the slant, and goes all the way to the baseline.

The common failure is a loop that is too wide, which makes the letter look inflated and makes neighbouring tall letters collide in words such as “hill” or “kill”. The other is a loop that is too thin, which closes up and looks like a stroke. A useful check is to see a small gap of white at the loop’s centre, about the width of a pencil lead.

l

The plain loop, and the one from which the others are built. After “e”, “a”, “i”, “u” and “o” the join is easy, and the only demanding neighbour is a bridge letter, as in “ol” and “wl”, where the bridge has to rise to the top line, as covered on the oh joins page.

h

Starts like an l, but after the downstroke retraces halfway up and makes an open hump. The hump borrows the n’s overcurve. In “ah”, “eh” and “th” the first half is a join into a loop, and the second half is a baseline exit.

k

Starts like an l, then has a small buckle at the midline and a kick down to the baseline. In “ak”, “ek” and “ik” the buckle must close near the stem; if it does not, the k looks like an h.

b

Starts like l, but ends at the midline with a check stroke and a bridge. The join into b is simple, as in “ab”, “ob” and “ub”, while the join out of b is the bridge, covered on the oh joins page.

f

Starts like l, crosses the stem, and adds a lower loop. As a join into the f, as in “if” and “of”, the tall loop is the same as l, and the lower loop is a separate matter, described under descender joins.

The retraced letters

t

The t is entered like the loop letters, but the climb stops about halfway to the top line, at a point rather than a loop, and the stem retraces down the same line. The t must be shorter than an l; otherwise it reads as one. The cross is added after the word, at about the midline height. In “it”, “at” and “ut”, the join into the t is the same exit-rising stroke, only stopped early.

d

The d begins like an a, with an oval, and then rises to the top line instead of stopping at the midline. The stem is retraced down. Because the first part is a closed oval, the join into a d is a bottom-to-top join, and the climb into the stem happens inside the letter. See the baseline joins page for “ad” and “ed”.

Spacing and collisions

Tall letters have the most trouble with their neighbours. In “hill”, “kill” and “ball” the loops of adjacent tall letters should not overlap, so leave the width of a narrow letter between them. If loops keep touching, you have too tight a spacing or too wide a loop. A good habit is to make all loops the same height and the same width in a word, and let the connectors vary a bit.

Words to practise

• Single loops: “eel”, “ale”, “ill”, “elk”, “ash”.
• Loop pairs: “hill”, “kill”, “ball”, “hall”, “lilt”.
• Loop and retrace: “tall”, “hold”, “failed”, “thankful”.
• Mixed: “children”, “blackboard”, “helpful”, “football”, “afterthought”.

What to check on your own writing

Cover the word except for the tall letters and look at them in a row. Are they all the same height, the same angle and the same loop width? Then uncover and check that the connectors are even. Handwriting that is tidy to the eye is usually just consistent, not perfect.

Next, see cursive joins for the overview of the four join types, or return to the letters A to Z to practise each tall letter individually.