posted
It's lovely. Like the brush was a ballet dancer and swirled across the panel (precisely) Not to get too corny on you Arthur! Now I dare you to post the barbel, you can say it was a trophy one you painted. Love.....Jill
Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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-------------------- Ryan Culbertson The Sign Shop at Quick Copies Greenwood, SC
Rock and Roll means well, but it can’t help tellin’ young boys lies. Mike Cooley - Drive By Truckers Posts: 453 | From: Greenwood, South Carolina | Registered: Apr 2007
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Arthur, superb Brushwork! a VERY high bar is set with that piece.
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
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posted
Signwriting at it's best. Thank you Arthur. Now we need you to post a U tube video showing the execution. Just curious, how is your hand writing, nice and neat and precise?
posted
Spot on Arthur, yes, thank you, I'll have a cuppa and be so kind as to add a dash of milk please! I say, smashing sign, do keep the signwriting alive over there and we'll do the same over here...cheers!
-------------------- Mike Meyer Sign Painter 189 1st Ave n P.O. Box 3 Mazeppa, Mn 55956
We are not selling, we are staying here in Mazeppa....we cannot re-create what we have here....not in another lifetime! SO Here we are!!!!!!!
posted
Thanks for the replies, everyone. It’s always good when customers are pleased, but so much better when fellow craftsmen are. Ryan, I’d assumed the wood was oak until you asked, now I’m not sure, it was quite an earthy colour for oak, even before I sealed it with a couple of coats of shellac.. Duncan, my handwriting is impenetrable so I started speed-printing capitals. Although almost as inscrutable, at least I can read it myself. Mike, pip-pip old son; Eton, was it? Anyway, I'll tootle along and make an infusion but, Earl Gray and cow juice!? Not quite the thing! Better make it China. TTFN
-------------------- Arthur Vanson Bucks Signs Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England arthur@buckssigns.co.uk -------------------- Posts: 805 | From: Chesham, Bucks, England | Registered: Mar 2002
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Thanks Pierre, I feel so lucky that our trade allows – indeed encourages – us to appreciate letterforms and play games with them. The shapes can express almost as much as the message they carry. I wonder if you would be kind enough post the link to your Pentel Brush video. I’d like to see it again now I have a pen.
-------------------- Arthur Vanson Bucks Signs Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England arthur@buckssigns.co.uk -------------------- Posts: 805 | From: Chesham, Bucks, England | Registered: Mar 2002
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Earl Gray and milk sounds like it would taste Nasty! Now, Earl Gray and Lemon sounds like a great Idea ... Thanks Guys. I think I'll have a cup. Here's to signmen everywhere.... May our brushes never go hard and everything else never go soft. Cheers!
-------------------- Lee McKee McKee Studios Birmingham, Al Planet Earth (sometimes) Posts: 277 | From: Birmingham, Al | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
The Pentel Brush Pen is one of the greatest tool for a signpainter. It's amazing how much I improved my hand lettering just by doodling with this pen.
-------------------- Catharine C. Kennedy CCK Graphics 1511 Route 28 Chatham Center, NY 12184 cck1620@taconic.net "Look at me, Look at me, Look at me now! I't's fun to have fun, But you have to know how!" Posts: 2173 | From: downtown Chatham Center, NY | Registered: Feb 2004
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Arhtur that is so precise & beautiful! I would love to sit under you & have to teach me all about your approach to lettering. So many things I am thinking, I don't know what to say!
My husband works in wood, & we are need something in our newly trimmed room. This is greatly inspiring!!!!!! Don't think mine would come close to your work tho!
-------------------- The Word in Signs Bobbie Rochow Jamestown, PA 16134
724-927-6471
thewordinsigns@alltel.net Posts: 3485 | From: Jamestown, PA 16134 | Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
Bobbie, both you and Todd have mentioned asking me questions, I would be very happy to answer any of which I’m capable.
I do have some general thoughts on lettering, for what they are worth. Brush lettering is a very different animal from type (for print). They must be because they are not aimed at common objectives. Type has to look regular and even at very small sizes. The smaller it becomes the more precision is required. Consequently, geometric letterforms are the most suitable for print, particularly body print. Display faces for print do not bear the same restraints, but type designers are type designers and often shackle themselves by method and habit. Reliance on sharp pencils, French-curves and T-squares does not encourage freedom of expression, nor does the need for perfect symmetry.
A signwriter is free from almost all such restraints and brushwork is very forgiving. Look at the sign above again, but look at it upside-down this time. You will see that nothing is symmetrical, nothing looks precise or correct – it shouldn’t. If you think it should, forget signs and go into The Print. The curves are organic, not mechanical, and contain many hints and subtleties which give the lettering rhythm and animation. Nothing kills a brush-formed letter quicker than symmetry.
Most signwriters will tell you that they only had five or six alphabets in their armoury. This tends to confuse newcomers to lettering who don’t understand how anyone could get by with so few arrows in their quiver. Things may become clearer when you realize that the Iris Hatcher sign is written entirely in one style – roman. However different it may appear, ‘The’ has the same structural anatomy as the rest. Now you may start to see why writers are always banging-on about having fun. A tweak here, a little bending of the rules there, and an apparently new alphabet appears before your eyes. Signwriting is an intensely satisfying occupation – not everyone gets paid for showing-off!
-------------------- Arthur Vanson Bucks Signs Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England arthur@buckssigns.co.uk -------------------- Posts: 805 | From: Chesham, Bucks, England | Registered: Mar 2002
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Mainly, I would allow a pit bull to chew half my leg off if I could see you create that in a YouTube video.....
I can almost imagine the finesse of your brush as you expertly maneuver it around.....
Any chance you could do a video demo at some stage?
Also...a very stupid question... which the ill-informed have probably asked you a hundred times.....how do you keep your vertical and horizontal alignment so accurate? And how do you brush text without running off the right edge of your substrate or coming up to short on the right edge? You know....keeping the negative space left and right equal?
Do you throw down some sort of template first?
Ok...I'm turning red from my ignorance here hoping I haven't asked the dumbest questions on earth.
-------------------- Todd Gill Outside The Lines Potterville, MI Posts: 7792 | From: Potterville, MI | Registered: Dec 2001
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Todd, nothing dumb at all. I'm not sure how well I can answer, almost nothing is absolute in signwriting.
I’m afraid I don’t have access to video equipment, so the chances are pretty slim. However, I do appreciate your interest and hope you have a go yourself.
The vertical and horizontal alignment question, I have no answer for – it just happens. It helps to keep your eyelevel roughly the same level as the lettering. Too far above and it will lean to the right, too far below and it will lean the left, but don’t rely on that approach for consistent italics. On certain styles, stroke width consistency is just a question of keeping the same brush pressure each time. However, when writing small roman, I tend to ‘draw’ the lettering with a fine, lightly loaded, worn out brush and fill in open spaces with the brush well loaded, letter-by-letter. If it needs second coating; for speed, you can often loosely flood coat almost immediately and the paint will settle out to the edges on it’s own, even when working upright, which I do by choice.
When you’ve done it for years your hand will know the shape of your own styles, without use of a template or brain! Indeed, I wonder if the hand is the real author of one’s style.
As for getting lettering out of space (or off centre), just range (justify) everything from the left! – Just kidding.
I would use a pattern or template for a style that wasn’t my own, or for fleets and multiples. As with the Iris Hatcher sign, when writing freehand I would usually snap top, bottom and centre lines, then count the letters per line (I=½, M= 1½, space = 1). find the centre numerically and chicken-scratch with chalk or stabilo, from the centre to right. Measure or eye-up the right hand gap and chicken-scratch left to centre. Nine times out of ten this won’t be accurate but is quite good enough to start painting, adjusting the length as you progress along the line from left to right. You can pull some wheezes if you get it a little wrong. For example, extend the tail of an R or add a flourish of some sort to various letters. Sometimes it can be well out of space, yet not notice.
-------------------- Arthur Vanson Bucks Signs Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England arthur@buckssigns.co.uk -------------------- Posts: 805 | From: Chesham, Bucks, England | Registered: Mar 2002
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Okay, I see what you mean Michael; I re-read my reply to Todd and see that it’s mostly impenetrable. I’m embarrassed by my lack of descriptive skill and apologize for making anyone giddy – but, you have to admit, it’s cheaper than alcohol.
[ March 04, 2008, 04:50 AM: Message edited by: Arthur Vanson ]
-------------------- Arthur Vanson Bucks Signs Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England arthur@buckssigns.co.uk -------------------- Posts: 805 | From: Chesham, Bucks, England | Registered: Mar 2002
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BTW, your explanations to Todd are as clear as any I've ever read and I've read a bunch. I think with hand lettering, so much is a learned "feel", much like the proper tack for gilding. It comes with practice.
-------------------- George Perkins Millington,TN. goatwell@bigriver.net
"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left"
posted
Arthur, it sounds like your layout method for freehand is quite similar to mine. However, my letters never come out looking like yours! Love....Jill
Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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Todd, re: "how do you keep from running short of space on the right side of the line?".... use Stars to Balance things, they always work!!
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
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posted
John I thought stars were only for disguising drips! Thanks for the tip. Love....Jill
Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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-------------------- Charles Borges de Oliveira Borges Lettering & Design Snohomish WA Posts: 352 | From: Snohomish WA | Registered: Mar 2003
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The timber looks like the top of a lot of old sewing machines we get around here- very oak-ish anyway.
(Anyone remember the Parsons' cartoon in Signcraft years ago about the bloke whose mate said he was a master of layout- and the text was clearly off centre, but had all manner of bells & swirls to bring things back into balance again?)
P.S. The A, I'm ok with, but I've never been keen on Ms without top serifs- they kind of look like they're missing a roof, to me, though you don't really have a lot of room for one there anyway!
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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Ian, your remarks about the capital M remind me of an occasion when I came face to face with a new manager of The National Trust (guardian of our stately homes and heritage sites).
I'd been writing their boards, in the Thames Valley area, for about five years when confronted by this newly appointed and formidable lady. she said she loved my lettering but insisted that on any capital R, I must start the right leg from the point where the upper story joined the down-stroke. I thought it was an odd request but she was very pretty, so I agreed. However, they did look most odd, to my eyes.
Some twenty years later I'm still writing most capital Rs that way. I became so used to them that any other way looks a little uncomfortable.
I suppose that's just a long-winded way of saying it's probably all a matter of what you become used to.
Also, I rather like pointed Ms and Ns because you can exaggerate them to add a bit of animation.
[ April 11, 2008, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Arthur Vanson ]
-------------------- Arthur Vanson Bucks Signs Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England arthur@buckssigns.co.uk -------------------- Posts: 805 | From: Chesham, Bucks, England | Registered: Mar 2002
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This is an example of what I was talking about on the post started about "the olde way". This is real lettering. It has rhythm and movement and emotion. It's beautiful! Accomplishes something not possible with type. Arther, thanks for again sharing with us.
-------------------- The SignShop Mendocino, California
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. — Charles Mingus Posts: 6712 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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