I have good handwriting and good fine motor skills in general. I can play the flute and knit and, when I have to, sew a button or a hem by hand.
But I’m a shitty artist. I feel like ability to draw comes from another place than just being able to control one’s fingers well.
I’m a good artist (good enough to have won a number of awards) but I can barely read my own handwriting. I can do calligraphy, though.
It’s stupid. Artists do everything from constructing figures out of traffic cones to ceramics to painting. Not all visual art requires fine motor skills. A lot of it requires sheer strength and gross motor coordination. I could see drawing possibly being correlated with handwriting, but art in general? That teacher needs to go back to school.
For the record, my handwriting is legible when I’m concentrating. If I concentrate too hard, I end up turning out something that looks like a ransom letter–wiTH loWer and uPPeR caSe letteRs mixeD togetHER. If I’m rapidly taking notes, my writing becomes chicken-scratch. My signature is fine, IMHO. That’s the only time I ever use cursive.
When I was in the second grade, my teacher rode my ass constantly because I wouldn’t hold my pencil correctly. She swore I would never be able to write in cursive because of it and said so in front of the entire class. Being sensitive, I cried at my desk. The very first C that I ever got on a report card was in penmanship. But did I ever change my pencil grip? Nope. Did I learn how to write in cursive? Yep. Was I the best artist in my elementary school–the one always chosen to draw for the school paper and always tapped to be the illustrator for the gifted kids when they had to write books for various contests that the rest of us were excluded from because apparently we weren’t creative enough? Yes. And I’m still artistic today.
I tried really hard to write well in school including changing hands. Nothing seemed to help. My father could sketch stuff out with great perspective but, alas, not I.
Typing on a keyboard is a fine motor skill, isn’t it?
I have good handwriting (not that I handwrite much anymore) and am bad at art. Letters are easy because there’s room for more interpretation. But drawing a person or an object, there is a strict philosophy to “getting it right” (unless you’re doing abstract art, in which case fine motor skill is not required because you aren’t drawing anything that represents reality).
I’ll take the blame for that. The teacher said that it develops fine motor skills, not necessarily art. Drawing was the first thing that came to mind regarding fine motor skills, so that’s what I put down. A poll that says “do you have fine motor skills” isn’t terribly informative.
I’m a designer (graphic) rather than a fine artist, and I have, if I may say so, very stylish writing, as do many many of my ‘designer’ friends and colleagues. It’s actually pretty unusual to find a designer in my field with poor hand writing. I can also write in a number of different styles.
However, I don’t think any of this is accidental. I do think designers have a tendency towards precision and craft, perhaps more than many fine artists that work in a looser style. However, more importantly, we want to be/look cool! I’ve often have people (such as my non-designer GF) joke about my ‘designer’ handwriting. I suspect it’s part of the package we present to make us different from our clients. “Look! I’m a designer! I wear cool clothes to work and have great handwriting!”.
Seriously, we practice it. Or at least did when we were students.
Yes, it is a bit wanky.
Even if you restricted the question to handwriting and drawing skill the answer is probably no. The physical skills required in both cases are the same - after all there are only straight lines and curved lines in both writing and drawing.
However the difference is in what happens in your head. When writing you are just making marks that represent letters, already familiar to you, that say what you wish to say. When drawing you are converting what you see or imagine into a picture. So the trick with drawing is to learn how to see and accurately transfer what you see into its composite lines.
Professionally trained sculptor: My handwriting is terrible and always has been. I draw and draft beautifully though. My everyday writing is a connected flowing mix of printing and the occasional script letter.
In my experience, academically talented girls are generally good at handwriting, and all guys are generally bad at handwriting. Artistic ability is not a factor, and may even be inversely proportional.
Woah, woah, woah…that’s a significant difference. I have excellent fine motor skills, I’m just terrible at art! I type over 100 words a minute, I sew, I braid cords, I bead (I guess that’s the closest I come to “art”)…all require good fine motor skills. But I can’t draw, can’t paint, can’t carve, can’t sculpt, etc. worth a damn. My problem isn’t lack of fine motor skills, it’s that I have a disconnect between what I want something to look like and what I’m able to produce. I also have the damnedest time figuring out “what to make”. I know this baffles artists, but plunk me down in front of a bunch of art supplies and tell me to make something, and you’re going to get a flower. A very specific flower that is my default doodle/drawing/painting (I even have it in clay from a pottery class where I utterly failed at making a simple cup and just started messing around with slabs of clay like Play-Doh.) It’s the only thing I make, because it’s the only thing I can think to make. Drives artists crazy, that does! 
But whatever creative drive they have, I don’t, and whatever skill they have, I don’t. It’s obvious to me that there’s far more to art than fine motor skills.
I think you thought too hard about this and invalidated your own survey. “Do you have fine motor skills” would have been a much better question. I’m not sure why you think it wouldn’t be informative. 
I have good handwriting and I like to think I’m an artist. However, I work at an art supply store. Most of my co-workers are artists and their handwriting skills are widely divergent. One really good watercolorist can barely read her own handwriting.
I gotta agree with WhyNot.
The teacher would be an idiot if she thought poor handwriting = bad artist. But poor handwriting is actually correlated with poor fine motor skills. It’s not a one-to-one relationship, though. I’m betting the relationship is probably only 30 to 50%. And if you’ve got spastic cerebral palsy and can barely hold a pencil, then yeah, chances are you aren’t going to be painting the next Mona Lisa. That seems like a no-brainer. But for most us, I doubt you could really predict how coordinated we are just based on our handwriting. Like, I’m so clumsy it’s embarrassing to walk next to me, but my handwriting wouldn’t indicate that.
Really, the only sensible explanation I’ve heard for still pushing cursive is to help students with dyslexia/students in general learn which way the letters face. I have no idea if the explanation has any merit. I think it’s an artifact left over from days when penmanship was still a vital skill for literacy and any occupation which required written communication.
I had semi-crappy handwriting until high school when it occurred to me that I didn’t have to follow the rules. I just had to write legibly and in a style that I liked. I seem to have three or four distinct styles depending on how fast I’m writing, what mood I’m in, or how much energy I have, but I get compliments on my handwriting all the time.
I also teach Art to high schoolers (currently) and am can draw competently. One of the hardest skills to master in drawing is the ability to draw an eloquent line, regardless of its place in a drawing. I think mastering that improved my handwriting.
I have outstanding handwriting. I even dabble in calligraphy as a hobby.
When it comes to “visual arts” I can’t draw flies if you cover me in crap.
I’ve got lovely handwriting. I get compliments (usually. It can verge on illegible - but even the people who complain that they can’t read it still tend to say it looks pretty). I also have very good fine motor skills. I’m an excellent craftsman (beading, knitting, I even know how to tat - there’s a useful skill for the 21st century). But i can’t draw. If you tell me what to draw, it will look like it was done by a small child. If you don’t tell me what to draw, you’ll probably get a blank canvas, because I can’t come up with anything in the first place.
My handwriting varies from atrocious (note-taking) to fairly pretty (written correspondence), so overall, average. But I’ve always been able to draw, sketch, and paint quite well. I just pay more attention to my art than, say, my grocery list.
I’ve been complimented many times on what people have called my “artistic” handwriting. It’s a mixture of print and cursive with a few calligraphic elements thrown in.
It strikes me funny because, as a kid, my handwriting was atrocious. I couldn’t learn cursive (a no-no in parochial school) to save my life. I was very good, though, at copying anything I considered “pretty” or “unusual”. Eventually I gained enough fine motor control to write cursive somewhat without actually copying, but subconsciously I always brought in those “pretty” elements, adding to them whenever something caught my eye. I still do, in fact.
I’d never consider myself a great artist, but I can draw/paint pretty well. Ditto decorating cakes.
My mom is an art teacher who used to expound the virtues of learning cursive. I was drilled in it, but could never really get it down. And while my drawing ability isn’t top-notch, I do have a knack for using photoshop – does that count?
I’m an illustrator and my handwriting is terrible.