In the old days, before computers and software took over much of the commercial art world including Sign Painting, like the above relied solely on the artisan’s skill and talent. I painted this classic sign in lovely downtown Sedro Woolley over Labor Day weekend. The sign is 16′-0″ long, which happened to be the width of my garage door, so thats where i drew up the full size pattern. I rolled out 72″ paper across the garage door and layed out the lettering by hand/eye, just like the old days when I worked at Mile High Sign in Denver. Once the lettering is all drawn out, I traced over the charcoal lines with a serrated stylus wheel that perforates the paper. I rented a 30/20 articulated boom lift from Birch Equipment to access the wall, which it barely managed after getting stuck in the gravel and pulling it out with my truck. Once I got up there I taped the pattern to the wall, and with a pounce bag made from a sock full of white chalk dust, I rubbed over the perforated pattern and transferred the design onto the wall. Luckily it was a sunny weekend with no rain in sight, but it was pretty hot up on that south wall. I painted the lettering and drop shadow with Nova Color artists paint which dried almost immediately on the hot wall. In the sign biz, the artists that painted wall signs were referred to as Wall Dogs.
Old time sign painters were working artists that decorated and visually enriched our towns and cities. The trade historically attracted independant types like Woody Guthrie, and if you were skilled and talented you were never out of work. Even during the depression, a good lettering/pictorial artist could travel the country and always find work. Now, many of the old wall signs that remain are faded and peeling but still beautiful, they’re called ghost signs. If you want to learn more about this classic trade, check out the Signpainters Movie directed by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon https://www.signpaintersfilm.com/#watch
And now for something completely different, My lovely wife Nancy Canyon will be launching her new memoir, “Struck. A Season on a Fire Lookout.” There will be a public reading at Village Books in Fairhaven on September 20, 6 pm. For tickets go to villagebooks.com. This is an exciting adventure about a young woman in the early 1970’s coming of age while living remote and rough with her husband in Idaho during the start of this tumultuous decade.https://nancycanyon.com/
