Thursday, December 18, 2014

Vintage Sign, 12er, Part 1...

Back in the summer i threw together some planks with the intention of DIYing a large piece for the living room. 51" x 48" to be exact:


Whatever I ended up painting on it, I knew that I was going to age the hell out of. First I painted the base coat white:


I mulled over this project for months. I just couldn't put my finger on exactly what i wanted to paint. Definitely wanted a Pittsburgh flavor, so I looked into old local busineses. Pittsburgh Brewing & Heinz, for example, but I wasn't really feeling anything. 

The next step was painting the sign black, as you can see here:


I really wanted this thing to look like we cut it right off of a barn. The more I thought about it, the more simple I wanted it to be. Big thick lines, bold paint, old timey, and ultimately I didn't want to paint someone elses design. After researching Ghost Signs (one of my favorite subjects), I came up with this:


Love the old school fancy type of a Ghost Sign! The number "12" is our address, and not only is Black, Gold and White totally Pittsburgh, but you see a lot of it in old signage.

Scaled it, printed it, and pieced together the paper for one big stencil:


Cut then traced with a pencil:


Traced back over the pencil marks with a White Deco paint pen:


Painted in the White, and traced the Gold parts, also with a Deco paint pen:


Thats where we stand right now... Check back soon for more!

1 comment: