Thursday, August 27, 2009

Signwriting practice with a mahl stick and an organ

Today I thought I'd return to some signwriting practice, this time trying to simulate real conditions a bit. This meant doing it on a near vertical surface about three feet from the ground and at something approaching full size.

I am realising that some of my favourite boats e.g. Saul and Bison, have plain block style writing for their names so I thought I'd have a go at that. Actually it turned out to be more draughtsmanship than signwriting because I took the trouble to measure up some fonts and copied the proportions with a ruler. However I did practice using a mahl stick - one of those sticks with a cloth ball on the end - and found that it needed a fair bit of practice first. Sadly it all had to be in pencil because all my paint brushes are currently on the boat and I'm at home.

Anyway here is where I have got to so far. You can see my home made mahl stick at the side.



Whilst taking the picture I realised you might be interested to see my "easel" which is a seat that I converted from an old chapel organ a few years back. When the internals of the organ got beyond repair I took the whole thing to bits and reassembled it like this:


It now lives in our conservatory at home. Rather grand eh?

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