☜ Sign Writing for Beginners ☞

I've always loved lettering, when I was a teenager I used to fill pages with 'bubble' lettering and draw letters with shadows and reflections. It was my way of doodling. A friend's father who was an artist said I had a real talent for it and I was secretly thrilled. I used to covet other people's handwriting  and I was a seasoned signature practiser. All of which, I thought, would make me a perfect candidate for a sign writing course. I had no idea how beautiful and difficult it would be and I am now completely hooked.

I dream of signs; I spot hand painted signs everywhere and now I am aware of how much skill and thought goes into them I spend quality time looking at them. That person peering upwards, giving herself neck ache? Probably me. Reverence where reverence is due, I say.

Day 1 of my sign writing course and I'm full of thrill and nervousness. The excitement compounded by the signs I see everywhere, all beautifully executed.

I love fairground horses~gallopers. These were all being repainted.

 

 

 

Tools of the trade ~ 

Half the reason I love crafts of any kind is for the tools and the materials.

The stick like a giant ear bud is for steadying your hand, a Maul stick 

and the paint shelves are a feast of drips and splash..

It occurs to me that I may be in over my head. The other participants are professional tattooists, sign makers, illustrators, designers and a genuine Punch and Judy puppet maker and performer. Our tutor Joby Carter is a wonderfully natural and talented 'letterist' demonstrating in a few sweeps of a brush how he has his 'eye in'. 

We are set to copy Roman alphabets onto exercise paper like children. 

The place is quiet apart from a few sighs.

The sighs turn into grunts and then the real swearing starts.

It's not as easy as you think.

I finish mine and feel as though I nailed it when Joby points out that my serifs are too short, my O's too narrow, my thins are not thick enough and then I see, really see, just how easily things can drift.

Then we have to draft out words and letters with pencil and ruler.

Hours of it. Hours of breath holding, sighing, tea making, biscuit eating, grimacing and swearing.

I thought this looked totally brilliant. Once upon a time. 

But now I can see just how bad it is. 

I'm posting it here as a reminder to myself that I'm capable of vast areas of improvement if I apply myself to something diligently and faithfully for a week.

I spent a couple of days on thrashing around with a pencil.

 

 

I like Es Rs and Ws. I am not keen on Os and Cs.

Being shown how to really sign paint is enlightening. It's a real skill...watching a master at work is fascinating and educational. We go for tours of the yard, the course is set in a winter yard for a fairground and all of the rides and vehicles get repainted here... all very thrilling.

Then we get to start with real paint and brushes, but it's baby steps for everyone. Painting lines and circles, rubbing it all off with white spirit and beginning again. Hours and hours of silence and concentration. And swearing.  

 

I got admonished for my brush handling skills. 

"Sign writing isn't colouring in." 

"It's not a fucking watercolour"

"You aren't holding anything correctly"

"Sit up straight"

I progressed slightly.

I swore a lot.

So did everyone else.

The smell of paint and white spirit all washed down with tea and chats. The chats were small though, everyone was studying hard.

 

 

 

I was fairly pleased with my first whole painted word KINGDOM but it was full of mistakes.

I loved doing it. I felt entirely at home and in my element.

Always a good thing.

 

I was a bit disappointed every time I spent hours on a word and then had to scrub it all off and start again. But it was good for me.

Practice Practice Practice

Where have I heard that before?

Then it was the last day and we had to make a completed sign, well, we didn't have to, I was desperate to take one home though, so I stayed up half the night planning and plotting my words. I had spent so long wondering which word was going to be The Word I Would Paint. It took a week to come up with something and then I got the lightbulb idea. 

The phrase just fell into my head. 

As though it was whispered into my ear.

A typical sign phrase.

But with a lovely double meaning.

Encompassing freedom and bookbinding and with it's original practical purpose.

 Ta daaah!

Out of Bounds.

Geddit?

It still needs varnishing and tweaking and it's full of mistakes but I love it as it is my first born and I will not part with it, not even to Rumpelstiltskin.

Lady Sign Writer For Hire

I thought Out of Bounds would make a splendid Book Bindery name. 

So I announce that I shall call my new studio / business venture 

Out of Bounds 

and you heard it here first. 

More on that soon.

But someone has the flipping domain name and isn't using it but wants £800 for it.

Errrrrrr. I will pass.

Right......

⧈ A toy hotel for Zee B ⧈

I wanted to share this, a simple project that taught me that having a lack of resources can be a GOOD thing. 

I found myself living in a beachside room in Cape Town, the one place in the world where fresh air is really really um... fresh. It hurls in straight from the Antarctic. It's gulp able, restorative and sometimes full to the edges with negative ions. And it never stops rolling in over the endless metronomic waves. It's exhausting to watch for too long. It's like thinking about infinity. Ouch.

Whilst living in this beautiful location and watching this endless sea, I didn't have any furniture and Cape Town prices for second hand stuff is waaaaay too expensive for temporary measures, so after making a bedside table out of a cardboard box and a scarf I got an idea. A creeping little voice that wouldn't go away. We had a young lady staying with us who needed to put her toys and clothes somewhere tidy. I decided to embark on a project that cost a few pence, was hours of fun to make and is now an iconic shelving system. 
INSERT PROUD FACE HERE

If anyone would like to make one you only need some cardboard boxes, masking tape, newspapers, wallpaper paste and paint. I got a load of cardboard boxes from the Wine Shop. Wine in Cape Town is delicious, high quality and very well priced. They also have lots of strong boxes to throw away which I pounced upon. After deciding my arrangement I started to bind the boxes together with masking tape. If I had access to better supplies I would have probably used a gaffer tape or possibly even soaked strips of fabric in white PVA glue but this was the first time so I can give you the fruits of my learning curve. 

This is what it looked like at that stage

I then added a few extras to make it seem more interesting to an investigative child,  I added a secret compartment and a decorative heart cut from the cardboard. I wish I had added a couple of metal rings that screw into things as it would have been cool to hang things from it too, bunting, jewellery, key rings, goggles etc...

I put a lot more masking tape on after I snapped the above image, I wanted to be sure the boxes would stay together and the tape wasn't very good quality, you can see it starting to peel off. Next task was to tear free newspapers into strips, I used a piece of wood, You could use a strong ruler...put the newspaper piles under it with a strip sized piece showing and tear strips against the wood edge. 

Make your wallpaper paste up, a bit thicker than the usual wet slop and I pulled the strips of newspaper through the paste and used my fingers in a scissor action to wipe off the excess slop. It was messy, we did it outside. Kids get bored with this after a while so just let them have a go. You get to do loads of it. It helps that it was sunny and breezy in Cape Town that week. 

Patience is required and a certain meditative quality sets in as you glue strips, wait for them to dry and then start all over again. It's papier mache essentially. I did the back, the underneath and the insides of boxes paying special attention to box joints. The boxes get wet and warp but that just adds to the charm for me, they can be propped up whilst drying. It is very fragile when wet but brittle tough when dry. I think I managed about 5 layers of paper before I got tired of it. It looked nice like this, I left it to dry out for around a week. It shouldn't be moved whilst wet, get someone to help you if you need to put it in a drying place. I sat it on newspaper which I peeled off after. 

Here's a close up of those joints, layered up with extra strips...if I did it again, these would get reinforced with plasterer's scrim mesh tape.

The heart detail needed a bit of jiggery pokery but in the end I wrapped newspaper through and around the heart opening.

I painted the whole thing with white emulsion, it was the cheapest thing I could find and I was now on a mission to spend as little as possible.  

I managed a couple of coats, it took ages what with all those surfaces.

At this stage it actually looked like I imagined it would which is an achievement in itself for a creative idea being born into reality. It's easy to get distracted on the path of making but I was quite tenacious about finishing this and I did have a little helper who was really enjoying the making. She didn't really understand where I was going with it all but she mucked in like a Mini Trooper Art Assistant Deluxe.

Ready for embellishment (although I liked it like this)

the light and shadow make enough of a pattern for me.

I wanted to dwell on my favourite architecture in Cape Town for inspiration.

But these are my ethereal and wafty artist ways and I had to attend to the important matter of getting this project finished and accepted a helping hand from a very excited young lady.

What would you have done with it at this stage? I would love to know...

We set about making a kind of English Garden Theme as we had done a lot of birdwatching, plant picking and garden viewing. A little corner of Cape Town was made into an English garden to remind us of home. No sketching, straight in with paint and brushes. We donned knickers and headscarves and painted an afternoon away. The very best thing to do whether you are 5 or 50.

Spot the garden worms for the birds to eat?

Insects and bees and frogs and dragonflies and birds, of course.

And a throbbing pink heart thrown in to remind us all of what is important.

When LouLouLOves makes something then the heart has to become part of it.

Little ZeeB wanted to sit in every shelf when it was finished but she didn't quite fit which was just as well. It's a tough piece but not a climbing frame.

But it gave me an idea to make a puppet theatre in the same fashion.

I might do one with Aubrey when he get's older, a circus booth for putting on 

The Greatest Show In Town.

And here is is in situ, in all it's glory.

The piece is still used a year later as a toy hotel and is much loved.

I want to make another one, a grown up one...

Cost £7.50.