This is a pic of my kit. The 'Mungyo' pastels you can see are the SOFT chalks.

The 'Contes' are the HARD chalks.

The pencils you see are HARD pastels in pencil form, great for detail work.

Take note... Soft pastels will only go over Hard, so we always start with hard (e.g. Conte`s/ Rembrandts)

Also, These are ALL Dry pastels,that is, they are NOT the oil based.

To the Boards....

These boards are any smooth finished material. They are sprayed using water based Flat Black Poster paint. It is important to spray the background, as any marks or impressions left in the background will come through the chalk work.

I will feature the Wood fired Pizza header first.
Here you see my markout. I transfer this to a piece of compressed fibre board we call Weathertex or MDOand. Cut it to shape. This is then sprayed as mentioned before, flat black.
Then I mark out the words and paint in what I call 'the underpainting'

You don't see the words 'Wood Fired' in this Pic for some crazy reason. They were just brushed in using flat black after this pic was taken.)

For the underpainting I chose what I perceive to be the mid range colour of the effect to be created. In this case a chrome yellow with a drop of black. I want a fiery effect so I will be using White, lemon yellow, chrome yellow, Orange and Reds. This under colour should provide a slightly contrasting back drop to these colours.

I have started by using the white HARD pastel chalk, roughly scribbling in a wild mark making style, following up with lemon & chrome yellow, orange and reds.

I like this insane mark making style because it gives life and action to the piece and I dont have to get caught in detail.

Okay, the art. In this pic you see the underpainting of foods. Again, I have chosen what I see to be a tone of the middle colour of each item, no detail, just a blob of colour for each.

Then I go to work with the chalks.(Pastels)
Using the hard chalks first, I scratch (mark making) in the colours, keeping in mind my light source for my highlights and shading. If i want my colours to 'pop' just a little more I use the soft chalks (Mungyo) over the top, but I use these sparingly because the clearcoat soaks into the soft chalk a little more than it does the hard chalks.

The trick with my style is to disquise that edge of the underpainting by scratching the chalk over the edges and sometimes working back into the edge with black chalk.

Then I attached the header to the board, bashed in the border and added the vinyl text. I like to keep the text simple, I find white works best, easy to read and very clean looking. The prices can be changed easier as well.

Clearcoating is an option to help seal the work against smudging, but it wont seal it completely. I use satin finish water based clear, sprayed on in about 3 coats as a very fine mist that just kinda floats onto the surface. You will lose some colour but it can't be avoided if the job must be cleared. The last coat should be a little heavier so the finished surface is not too porous/rough/grainy, as this will cause your vinyl text to not stick very well.

Oh yeah, do your clear coating before you apply your text.

Hope you could follow this.

Happy chalkin.

RobC

[ February 03, 2002: Message edited by: Steve Shortreed ]

[ February 03, 2002: Message edited by: Steve Shortreed ]

[ February 05, 2002: Message edited by: Rob Clark ]

STEVE......HHHHELPPPPPP!!!

Sorry folks

I have started mine last night. A 2'x4'masonite board.
Doing it as a sample piece,(Beverage Room Cold Drinks)
Primed and painted with Poster black.
Not sure on the graphics yet,but will have something in mind today.

Oh by the way, on your posting. To keep it in the frame work of the screen, custom size your picture to no more than 500 pixels in width.
Add your text under or above it.

The olny question I would have from this point would be about a "water based" clear ... haven't heard of such a beast ... and am guessing it has to spray through a gun of some sort (not rattle can)

Yes, the pics took very long to load, I have DSL and it's been about 5 minutes, and it's still not loaded all the way......
If you set your resolution at 72 that will make them load faster. (Open the images in photoshop, click on images, size, resample to 72 resolution, save)
I hope I got that right.

Firstly a big THANKS Steve for cleaning up after me yet again. I have some idea now where I went wrong so should be better next time. Though most (all bar one I think) were saved at 500 pixels and at 72 dpi so I dont know about this slow loading biz, sorry.

Yes, the clear is waterbased and is available here in Oz, so you may just have to pack a lunch and come get some. Solvent or oil based clears tend to eat the chalk heaps more than water based tho' Lindas suggestions in Joey's post (I'd like to see) may work okay.
And yes it is applied with a spray gunrather than a rattle gun eh eh...good one.

These boards have been put up outside..... ,the owners screw a sheet of 3mm clear Acrylic sheet over them and seal the edges with Silicon... Some of my boards have been up for over 12 months now, they are surviving reasonably well,but this work was never intended for outside use so.......go figure

Hope I have it covered, but dont be afraid to keep asking questions.