Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Signwriting lessons teach yourself style

The family weren't all that keen on the plain block style I showed you the other day, so I had a go at a serifed font and produced this.


I think this one was about three quarters full size.


I'm trying as best I can to replicate what I would have to do when painting Herbie for real, so this time I did no actual measured marking out on the lettering itself. Instead I had a great idea. Well I think it is anyway. I put all the measurements of thicknesses, widths and spacings along a single line above the lettering, the using a home made square and the mahl stick, drew the letters from that. On the actual boat I could do the measuirng line on a piece of masking tape, work all the letters in the same way without having to mark out the actual paint surface. So all the lines you see in the picture above are done using the mahl stick only.

The other thing I am learning is that painting is probably a bit more forgiving than the felt tip drawings I have done so far. If you go off line with the felt tip you can't erase it, but with new paint onto a gloss surface you can quickly wipe off any slips with a rag and try again.

For my next experiment I'm going to go back to paint on metal ( or perhaps wood) , but first I have to get a really good painted surface, so more painting and rubbing down practice. This all takes a long time but time is something I have, being retired, and I would like to make a good job of the real thing when I pluck up the courage to do it. If I can do as well as friend Leon did on his boat the Old Bovine, I'll be very happy.




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