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Hand Lettering Trances

Hand Lettering topics: Sign Making, Design, Fabrication, Letterheads, Sign Books.

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Site Man
Posts: 573
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2005 1:03 am
Location: Marlborough, MA

Hand Lettering Trances

Post by Site Man »

OLD FORUM POSTS

Posted by Raymond Chapman on December 03, 2001
While I was at the USSC show in Atlantic City this past weekend a bunch of us old guys who hand letter where remembering the "good old days" and the feelings of brush lettering. Each of us tried to describe the trance-like state that we would get into while spending the day with a brush in our hand. This "out of body" experience is not easily put into words, but possibly some here might be able to describe the "bliss" of manipulating a brush.

I'm well aware that hindsight has a selective memory and not everything about brush lettering was heaven, but it was (and is) something that put you into a "groove" that made the hours fly by and could transport you mentally into a different world.

So, anyone want to take a stab at waxing poetic?
Mike Jackson
Hi Raymond,
I probably can't do your question justice. It WAS very nice to letter a sign under the best of conditions....good lighting, shoulder height, smooth surface, perfectly mixed and thinned paint, a relatively new but trained brush, good music, and during a part of the day when the customers gave you a little undisturbed time. I wouldn't necessarily call it once in a blue moon when that actually happened, but for me it wasn't that common. :) Let's see...that low line of copy on the bottom of a truck door, on the sunny side of the truck, with the wind blowing causing the paint to thicken and pull the hair out of the brush. :)

I never gained the skills with a brush as some of you elders, but did what I had to do to get the sign ready. :) To me, the lettering aspect was the lesser of the two, compared to trying to come up with a catchy design. In that respect, the introduction of the computers complimented a part of the sign business that I liked, but struggled with on occasions. I remember stacking up all those pool rules and menu boards in the corner out of the way until they just HAD to be done.

I might have slipped into a trance on those pool rules and menu signs, but it was not exactly what you are talking about here. I used to hand letter a bunch of billboards for Switzer Outdoor in Shawnee, Oklahoma. I'd get up early and drive 45 minutes where they would have two or three big panels ready with the design pounced on them. I would just cut in the lettering and another person did the fill in. With a 1" flat, I could cover a lot of edges in one day. Those days went pretty fast and I got paid fairly well on most of them. I do remember a few occasions where I got there early in the morning after a morning dew and had to wait for the board to warm up. If I started too early, the paint would pull away from the lines on the industrial enamel backgrounds.

Hand lettering is still fun once in a while, but not something I'd want to do all the time. When we were doing it quite a bit, before selling the shop, my painting fingers used to go numb fairly quickly. I haven't had that problem in a long time, but I'll probably get it in the wrists from typing now.

Thanks for the posts!
Mike Jackson
Carol
Geez Mike!
lol
I do know what you're say. But I understand what Raymond is saying too. Only I hit the "zone" when painting. Time does, indeed stand still. Perhaps Raymond should take up calligraphy. It's nice to have something that puts me in that "zone". Pitty the poor folks who never have gone there.
Mike Jackson
Hi Carol,
Ha!...I do know what he was talking about. I am really glad I learned "the old way" as those skills can still come in handy. I actually liked "watching" a good hand letterer more than I liked doing it. George Seelander and Glen Newcomer in Oklahoma City made it look so effortless. I could (and did) sit and watch them for hours. Darla likes painting paper banners for the church, basketball teams, birthdays and so forth. The money on those things is not the issue...she just does them because it makes her happy and likes the feel of the brush dragging on the paper.

I used to like looking at slightly faded, old hand lettering...the ones where you could see every stroke. The good ones had only the very minimun number of brush strokes, without a lot of "brush-overs" to correct a stroke that had gone off track. Those "machines" pumped out stroke after stroke all day and were excellent at their craft.

I just had to laugh a little when Raymond was talking in his original post about the good old days of hand lettering. Throw in a couple of decades of computers and we get to look back at only the best of our recollections. I wasn't to be too negative as much as throwing in a few loose hairs into the paint. They look about like bubbles and wrinkles to me!

Always fun to reflect.

Mike
Mike Languein
I remember the day "It Clicked" for me - I was in my shop and lettering with my Mahl stick and all of a sudden I realized I was pretty much just watching my magic fingers make the letters and I was watching the show effortlessly. Even the O's finally looked right. It still happens when I get to do hand lettering for a long time, but more and more aften it's days between gigs. The comfortable situation like Mike mentions is when I'm in absolute Heaven = indoors, my music on, nobody buggin' me, doing what I want, getting paid for it, lettering away at eye level. *sigh* I wouldn't trade that in for a vinyl machine for nothin'.
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