Color brings Charles to life!

This morning I started in on the base colors for the Town Crier's Whiskey sign. I was using Modern Master's Scenic paints which have a very high pigment content. This means they covered extremely well. The paint is thick and creamy, a lot like the acrylics I used to get in tubes when I did fine art. I worked with a limited pallet, mixing colors and blending as I went. I would concentrate on the top part, the pictorial for now as I tend to splash paint around as I work. This way I could paint madly without worry of drips below.

Charles, (the name works for me) the town crier came together quickly. The paint is a bit flat yet but that will be remedied as I start in on the glazes when these colors are dry, most likely later this afternoon. Stay tuned...

Two of a kind - almost

Back in my earliest sign painting days (when we still painted signs instead of sticking vinyl) my least favorite thing was the second side of a vehicle. That second door was no where near as exciting as the first one. The cure for me was to paint them both at once. I would hop from side to side on the vehicle painting one or two letters on one door and jumping to the other side to do the same. If I didn't do that it would be drudgery to do what I had already done. The fact that trucks have two doors was probably one of the main reasons that made me persue other forms of sign making where I could do different things all the time. I'm sure they have a pill for that now but I'm pretty happy doing things the way I like to do things.

I decided to do a second copy of the Town Crier Whiskey sign as a sample for my studio. It wasn't long until I felt those same feelings of old. I handled it the same old way, jumping from sign to sign, keeping them about equal in completion. But I also did something I couldn't ever do with truck doors. I didn't make them identical. Each, while similar in some was is also quite different. 

Each time I work on the the two signs my favorite becomes the one I am working on. As I switch, so too does my choice. I'll let the owners of the pub pick the one they prefer and I'll keep the other. That keeps things nice and easy (for me).

Now we are on to paint!

-grampa dan

More than a pretty face

I tend to get a litte carried away with the structure of my signs. I like to think that there is no such thing as too strong. I also don't like failures or call backs.

Most shops I know use 15-20 lb high density urethane as a substrate for their projects. In our shop we use no less than 30 lb Precision Board HDU. The number refers to the pounds per cubic foot. The higher the number the stronger and more durable the product. I also like to use a sturdy structure inside our sculptures as well when the situatiion fits, most often a welded steel frame. Making things extra sturdy lets me sleep at night without fear of a possible callback or failure down the road.

For the Town Crier Whiskey sign I am adding an arm, hand and bell. Chances are someone will give it a pull down the road, most likely more than I would like. So I welded up an armature from 5/8" steel rod and then glued this deep into the high density urethane sign. No way ths was going to fail!

As I looked at the sculpt today it occurred to me that although my first sketch looked a little like George Bush, the Town Crier now looks a little like Prince Charles frrom certain angles. Funny how that worked out. Maybe it's the ears?

Once the glue had cured I set about sculpting over the bell handle frame. No one but me would ever know it was there and that was OK.

Everyone else would be looking at the outside and admiring the pretty face. :)

-grampa dan