Signwriting progress

[galadhir]

So, I started a signwriting course at the very beginning of September this year. It's a year long online course taught by video, with a Facebook group where you can ask questions and a bunch of worksheets that you can print out, in order to paint over them and learn how to control the brush that way.

The guy who teaches it learned his craft with a three year long City and Guilds course, and says that his teachers learned via the traditional apprenticeship that lasted five years. So I feel that having done it for three months, not an awful lot can be expected of me.

Still, I've practiced every day for at least an hour a day since I started, and I think you can see the difference :)

Two signpainting exercises, one done on 8/9/22 and one done on 8/11/22

About two weeks ago I was feeling horribly frustrated and did not want to go on at all because I thought I was rubbish and not improving at all. (Script lettering, ugh, it's the bane of my life.) But looking at these two exercises, I think maybe I am getting somewhere after all.

Comments

[ehyde]

That's a cool subject for a course! Is everything at large scale like that? (I mean I'd assume so because...signwriting...but I don't actually know a thing about it)

[galadhir]

It is :) I started because my son is now living on a narrowboat, and we're going to repaint it next year, so someone has to put the name and registration number back on - and it might as well be me.

Yes, this is on A4 paper and is actually smaller than I'm meant to do it. The end goal is to be painting shop fronts and the sides of boats and lorries, so you'd normally be doing it much bigger.

[watervole]

A narrowboat is absolutely a good reason for doing a course!
I bet there are some good videos out there on painting canal roses too. They should be pretty easy with the skills you're developing for brush control. They're really very simple in construction.

[galadhir]

Thank you! Yes, I've been painting roses and castles for a while now, and I wanted to be able to do the whole package. You're quite right that the roses are a lot easier, and I wonder what will happen to my roses once I've got used to much more rigorous brush control :)

[mistressofmuses]

I have annoyingly shaky hands, so that sort of thing always seems intimidating to me! Those look quite good to me!

[galadhir]

Thank you! I also have annoyingly shaky hands, but I'm hoping that after a year or so of practice they will be so used to this sort of work that I'll be able to paint a smooth line anyway. The brushes help, if you use them right.

[bluedreaming]

This looks so neat!

[galadhir]

Thank you! It's very meditative to do, when I'm not feeling frustrated at how wobbly my lines are. Thanks for adding me, btw :)

[bluedreaming]

It does sound very meditative!

And thanks for mentioning your account! I’m always happy to have more people in my dw sphere ♡

[xenodike]

Wow. What a great idea. Although I can, bearly read my own handwriting, so probably not for me. You're worksheets already look really impressive!

[galadhir]

Thank you! Honestly, my hand shakes so much and every single time I try to draw a straight line it wiggles and the brush flicks out and makes marks I never intended. So I think you could do it too if you wanted. It's surprising what improvement you can get from practicing an hour a day every day for three months! I hope that in a year I'll be almost decent ;)