posted
...So, I'm lettering a Landscape Company truck today, and there are four number 8's in the phone number, and I hate lettering the no. 8. (Maybe because it's my least favorite number) For some reason I just seem to dislike my 8's. Although no complaints from anyone else. So, as I'm painting away today, I'm thinking to myself - I wonder if any other signpainters have a particular number or letter that they dislike to paint, or just me? OH, and yesterday, a semi-truck with numerous 8's in the DOT and MC nos. Imagine that!...lol Just the musings of a signpainter.
-------------------- Kristie Byrnes Paintbrush Graphics 6126 Big Cut Rd. Mt. Carroll, IL 61053 rugbyrnes@hotmail.com (563) 357-7614 Posts: 90 | From: Thomson,IL | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
When serving my apprenticeship, one of the regular assignments was to go around and change the assets on windows at some chains of savings and loans. These were all 1" gilded numbers and there was always several zero's...lots of 'em lined up. Each branch had at least two windows to do. Back then, we backed up our gold with a product called Sta-Zon thad dried real fast...in the brush, and was not nearly as easy to work as a varnish.
As far as a letter that I didn't like making, Q's usually were difficult to look properly balanced, and the numeral 2 often had a heavy section.
-------------------- The SignShop Mendocino, California
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. — Charles Mingus Posts: 6720 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
I detest painting the X. Luckily they are few and far between! Mine always look off-kilter. Love....Jill
Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
| IP: Logged |
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. — Charles Mingus Posts: 6720 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
Being left handed, one stroke (right reading) always came natural for me... but in reverse, even after 30 years, it is still a challenge.
When I started lettering the goal was to make hand lettering look typeset. Now the pendilum has swung as I strive to make vinyl look hand lettered.
I remember years back in SignCraft there was Bob Parsons cartoon about 'horse collar' "O's". I never really liked them at the time but now I find my "O's" have become heavier at the top. I think they actually look nicer that way.
What goes around, comes around.
Curt
-------------------- Curt Stenz Graphics 700 Squirrel Lane Marathon, WI 54448 Posts: 591 | From: Marathon, WI 54448 | Registered: Dec 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
"what goes around comes around".... that's what was happening when i was learning to letter... kept brush going around, until the "O" or "S" got fatter and fatter, my Dad used to say, "looks like bent pipe" ...taking that "above and below the guide lines" rule way beyond nice!!
Curt, being left handed doesn't make us right!
bt john
-------------------- John Lennig / Big Top Sign Arts 5668 Ewart Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada bigtopya@hotmail.com 604.451.0006 Posts: 2184 | From: Burnaby, British Columbia,Canada | Registered: Nov 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm with Jilly on the "simple" X ! Free hand between two lines aint as easy as it looks to get perfectly even and sized.
I've found that altering your brush strokes can often fix problem letters. For example my Zeros always seemed to have a "flat" spot on the bottom right hand corner. By extending my first lefthand down stroke and sweeping up into this area then overlapping with the right hand down stroke , it cured it.
So Kristie, look at forming your eights in a different way. Check out some font styles and/or some other hand lettering styles of "8"s. They may give some ideas.
I learned to do the "8's" all at once. Each stroke on the first is repeated for the others. The top stroke, the bottom stroke then the center stroke...keeping them aligned. Then you do the verticals to round out the sides. Using a pounced pattern helps.
The letter I didn't like to do is, uhm, actually, I like doing them all. I have favorites! I love the round ones. I love the ones with feeling, lots of scroll to them LOL.
Curt's comments on horsecollar O's takes me back to my first job in a sign shop. I had anoher signpainter helping me fine tune my work. I was putting the crosstrokes in my G's a little too low. When I mastered that' I looked for his approval. He said "yea, that looks good, now if you'll just stop making your U's look like pulled fence steeples, you'll be OK" .
A little explanation is needed here. Folks in the country around here refer to the U shaped staples that fasten barbed wire to fence posts as "steeples". When you remove them from a post using a claw hammer, the barbed wire pulls the rounded part of the staple into somewhat of a point. Needless to say, I never made a pointy bottomed U after that.
-------------------- George Perkins Millington,TN. goatwell@bigriver.net
"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left"
posted
I have less patience with "E's than other letters...they take too long to paint if you ask me.( Based on square block-like styles) Also I don't like fonts with 100%squared off serifs...time consuming.
-------------------- Jeff Ogden 8727 NE 68 Terr. Gainesville FL, 32609 Posts: 2138 | From: 8827 NE 68 Terr Gainesville Fl 32609 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Kristie there's not any of the letters or numbers that I actually dislike to paint, so I'm just gonna put the letters and numbers I have trouble with:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 1234567890
-------------------- Jon Jantz Snappysign.com jjantz21@gmail.com http://www.allcw.com Posts: 3395 | From: Atmore, AL | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
3's and our old area code was 303 and the old local prefix is 353 or 330 or 339 for business phones sooo I had one customer who's number was 303-353-3333...needed a pattern for that one.
-------------------- Kent Smith Smith Sign Studio P.O.Box 2385, Estes Park, CO 80517-2385 kent@smithsignstudio.com Posts: 1025 | From: Estes Park, CO | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
Still O'. Mainly when lettering any kinda staight block or serifed type . . .
Always look like eggs to me . . . I'm fine on a casual . . .
I don't obssess about it as much as much as I used to when I would turn the panel upside down and study it or get a mirror and look at it backwards trying to analyze the symmetry of it . . . lol
-------------------- Signs Sweet Home Alabama
oneshot on chat
"Look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, work like a dog" Posts: 5758 | From: "Sweet Home" Alabama | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
CHARTER MEMBER OF THE. MISSISSIPPI MOLASSES ASSOCIATION Practice! The BIGGER THE BURGER, THE BETTER THE BURGER, THE BURGERS ARE BIGGER AT BURGER KING! Practice! Fake the numbers...they ain't but 10 Practice will get you closer to being aggrevated and driven nuts with this profession.This is what sign paintin' is all about...but you gotta love it!
-------------------- Bill Wood Bill Wood, Sign Artist 3628 Ogburn Ave., NE Winston-Salem, NC 27105-3752 336-682-5820 Posts: 397 | From: Winston-Salem, NC | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
The letter "B" gives me more trouble. The 8 can have some variety, some snap, and look good. You can't "fix" a B after you've started it.
Once I learned to paint the vertical for the letter T before painting the horizontal stroke it didn't give me any more problems. Maybe I should paint the bottom loop of the B before the top loop?
-------------------- :: Scooter Marriner :: :: Coyote Signs :: :: Oakland, CA :: :: still a beginner :: :: Posts: 1356 | From: Oakland (and San Francisco) | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
The most tedious styles to me are the square-shaped letters, like microgramma or eurostyle. It's so easy to get them mis-shapen or out of balance. Even though I like the look of them at times, I try to stay away from them as much as possible.
-------------------- Dale Feicke Grafix 714 East St. Mendenhall, MS 39114
"I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me." Posts: 2963 | From: Mendenhall, MS | Registered: Apr 1999
| IP: Logged |
![[Rolling On The Floor]](graemlins/rolf.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic