Hey, all: maybe ya'll can help me think this through. I write stories about somewhat famous people for a living and at the end of interviews, I typically ask the subject to draw a revealing self-portrait. Often as not, I don't wind up with anything that I can profitably interpret in my story. See the scan below (and bonus points go to anyone who can ID the artist!), which is, in fact, better than most.

Right now I'm wondering what I might do to get a bit more out of these last minute requests, and the idea of graphology came to me. I'm in the middle of reading Sex, Lies and Handwriting. The author places a lot of stock in the value of the stand-alone letter "I", for obvious reasons, as well as the letters "d" and "t". The trick for me now is to come up with a suitable sentence to get my subject to write -- a sentence that, as well, might open up new avenues for exploration. Thoughts and/or suggestions, anyone?
My current plan is to mull and ponder the words while with the subject and offer up a few tentative interpretations, just to see if I can get my person to talk about whether I'm right or wrong or too intrusive or too meddling or ... whatever.

Again, I'm using Sex, Lies to gather some intel on handwriting analysis and, hopefully, I'll be able to compound that stuff with on-the-spot insights of my own. My first attempt at this will be coming up in a few days. I'm not sure what I'm asking ya'll for, exactly, but maybe there are things I can do, or get a person to write, or offer as a suggestion that you know about and that I don't.

Or maybe you'll have thoughts about an entirely different way to expand on the self-portrait idea. I'm open to just about anything. One limitation is time. I usually bring out my pad with five minutes or so left to the chat, so whatever I do has to be very time efficient.

Thanks!

Click here to view attached image.

Great post. I love your idea to interpret sketches and self-portraits, interesting. Throw away everything you have on hand writing analysis and get you a copy of "Speed Learning Graphology" by Julian Moore. Inside it has what you're looking for. You'll thank me for it later. <3

Whoa thanks for the recommendation. Appreciated!

(And with my system, two words of ten letters is all that's required)

I think the graphology bit would be a lot more impressive if you did it on people BEFORE you interviewed them.

As for a sentence to write...if I were to do it, I'd instruct them to write some sort of free-form sentence. Almost stream of conscious...I think you could get something to read off of analyzing that in addition to the graphology. It would be an easy thing to try, you'd know in several readings.

"I am..."

3 things... get them to describe themselves as a person... what they highlight/project, vs your perception (or the public's) of them will be enough to have fun with... get them to sign the drawing too...

depending on your mentalism knowledge, and doing what bob said about getting them to create it at the very beginning could give you plenty of interesting and somewhat leading questions to ask during the interview...

and if you can replicate their signature as well as know how they see themselves...then all the better...

If you want to base your analysis on those three letters, ask google to discover words with those three letters, or two of the letters. I spent less than two minutes, and discovered Rembrandt, tinkered, ditched, tide and others. Then invent a sentence using some of those words, and ask people to handwrite that sentence.

George

As already suggested get Julian Moore's Graphology.
And Although I like the self-portrait idea you could replace that for a drawing of a tree....
Check out Andy Fisher's book Doodle me a tree or Rudy Hunter's DVD Draw me a tree.

I have given some great readings using the three resources mentioned above.

You guys are great. Thanks very much. I've bought Julian's book and am in the middle of it; for my purposes, I have a few concerns, but I'll hold them until I get to the end.

I should be clear that I'm not trying to be impressive. As with the self-portrait request, I want the handwriting request to seem almost trivial and if it leads somewhere it does, if not, that's fine too. One of the great things about Julian's two words is that they're common enough to not be off putting and unique enough to get someone to ask, What gives? And if I can get the "what gives," then maybe I'm in like Flynn and off to the races (or something like that).

Also, I have a way of structuring my interviews such that the self-portrait biz and related matters has to come at the end. And it has to be quick. Hence, I don't want my subjects to have to think of words to describe themselves. I will already have asked them to do that verbally, in most cases. Then again, I could see asking them to write three words only that describe their biggest fear when they were small, which has always been a productive line of inquiry for me. But then that takes me in a direction I might not want to go, because then the discussion becomes about that fear and not about a possible interpretation of the subject's handwriting.

Please bear with me a little. I'm still trying to sort out my thinking on this.

George: I did not know I could do that with Google. Thanks for the suggestion!

Tom and others: Again, I think I really want to tell the person what to write. I've already asked them to come up with a self portrait and I don't want to overstep bounds by asking for more, uhm, creative thinking, which is why I like Julian's two words. But more about his stuff in a bit.

Meanwhile, no one wants to take a guess about the "artist" behind the drawing I posted???

Before we can guess the 'artist' it would help if we knew which country you were in. UK? US?

By the way, as I mention in my book, learning the two word system doesn't just confine you to the system. Knowing the meanings of those ten letters can of course be used as a memory aid to analyse any amount of words.

And of course a person's signature is a double whammy as it can be analysed a huge amount by style, as well as the individual letters.

Thanks, Julian. Hint on pic: actor, U.S. No worries if no one wants to take a stab at it. but I do want to thank everyone here again for their thoughts and suggestions. very helpful.

Lots of good information on this thread--thanks for starting it.

Is the drawing of/by William H. Macy?

Close but no cigar. it's geo clooney. can you see it now? meanwhile, I'm on the road right now but am going to post what my subject gave me as a handwriting sample and signature yesterday. I have no clue what to make of it. I put a bunch of theoretically significant letters into google and came up with 'artie dingo' as a phrase for him to write which he did. all in block cap letters. which threw me for a loop. but it is the way he writes. no script. anyway, I'll post it later and see what you guys make of it.

I thought it was stan laurel...but that didn't make sense...

Okay, what do you make of this? And, yup, that is his signature beneath the printed words. If you were a graphology believer, what's your take on this guy? Thanks for any thoughts you may have!

Click here to view attached image.

I like that.

I've had people draw a "House, Tree, Person" drawing for years. Hardly anything else compares for a quick bit that provides a lot of impact. The interpretations can be found online. This creates more interest than any "trick" or gimmick. Imagine that, people like hearing (and talking about) themselves. This is a good way to work with cold reading elements in a safe way. Just a thought.

Yes, that makes sense. OTOH, one man's quick is another man's eternity, and in my case HTP or the Pig thing would take much too long. Sometimes 30 seconds is all I've got or want to use.

Anyway, could somebody *please* weigh in with a few words about the signature linked to above? I'm thinking of going with something like, the letters in his signature are hardly recognizable as such; half of them are open ended, waiting to be closed, the rest almost imaginary figments of some kind, punctuated at the terminus by a peace symbol.

I don't want to use more words than that, but my plan is to come back them later, while talking about how unfinished he sometimes seems, kinda like his sig. make sense?

Id have said he was a quick witted yet laid back kind of guy, thoughtful and wants to understand and help others...

That's said with zero knowledge of graphology...

Sweet hayzoos, iain, that's ***exactly*** the right call on the guy. for the purposes of the story, I might still go with my interpretation, but you are dead on with yours. uncanny!