G.A.Schwarz, Toys & Fancy Goods

[Larry White]

I just finished up this request to replicate this old
victorian era trade card into a reverse glass sign.






Came out pretty good, truth be told.

-Aho!

[Rich Hawthorne]

Wow Larry. Very nice. I like the detail in all of it but the border is really sweet. Excellent work as always.

Rich

[Jerry Berg]

Very nice Larry! I'm sure the client was overly happy.

[Tony Segale]

Nice Gildin, and reverse glass painting!

There you see. That's the concept.
Take some lessons.

[Tyler Tim]

Larry very nice. What is the size and can you give a time frame on a piece like this?

[Larry White]

I surely can....

The finished framed piece is 26" x 36",
I took right around 70 hours, over 3 months.

Like Jenco says, "Once you get that deposit check,
there's no reason to hurry."

It was a pretty day for makin' things right!

-Aho!

[Tyler Tim]

Larry... in the corners it looks like you did an inlay or could be copper leaf ( the little diamonds ). On the bottom they stand out... the left top is in slight shadow but looks like it's there but the right corner however looks hollow. Am I seeing it correctly or is it my eye's have not recovered from viewing Helga's leg that Dan posted in the DM12 thread.

Tim

[Larry White]

The outer embossed border line was created via face down acid embossing.
The inner embossed border line was created via face up acid embossing.
I trust you can see the difference in these two techniques.
Both have been water gilded 23K, then outined to leave a mirrored gold
brightline around the acid embossed lines.
The two diamond shapes are filled with abalone.
The circle, with mother of pearl. The "club" shapes are filled with glass glitter.
The other shapes are just filled with the background paint color.
So now ya know.....

[Tyler Tim]

Larry the closeup photo really is nice the corners have more detail then I first observed... the silver scrolling it that top etched (mica paste) ? If you have any other detailed photos I and others I'm sure would enjoy seeing them.

[Pat Welter]

Pretty sweet there Larry.

[Anthony Bennett]

Very, Very nice

[Larry White]

The G.A.Schwarz text is 23K water gild into face up acid embossed outlines,
with blended japan color letter centers, with a handpainted split shade.




The secondary text is 22K moon gold, water
gilded into face down acid embossed letters,
with a slight darker background color drop
shadow, and a metalic paint fill on the drop
shadow line.




Reverse handpainted pictorial done in
japan colors. The Christmas tree ornaments
are colored with transparent screen inks,
then surface gilded with 16K pale gold.




"Toys and Fancy Goods" is 23K water gild into face up acid embossed
outlines & drop shadow line. Abalone fill on letter centers. Slightly darker
background color on drop shadow. Scroll work is face up acid embossing
with 16K pale gold water gild.




"1006 Chestnut St. & Philidelphia" are both 23K water gild into face
down acid embossing.

.

[Tony Segale]

Excellent, Mr. White, and very convincing.

Tell me, what method did you use, I'm mean did you do this free hand?

Next time, leave the skin on the chicken!

[DAVE SMITH]

Work of art Larry!
. Great job as always and like the style, reminds me of Daddy Fine Gold's work. must of taken a while to make...

Dave

[Tyler Tim]

Larry

The first photo was nice .. the corner photo eluded to much more
But all those wonderful details.. the split shade... the drop shadows... abalone fills and embossing did not show at all.

Thank you for taking your time to take the additional photos.

Your a true craftsman... and an inspiration.

Thanks Again Tim

[Larry White]

Upon close inspection, the reference artwork that was supplied
was very loose, more like a hand drawing, than a refined lithograph.
Perhaps when this art was created, that's all they could afford,
or needed for their particular application. After weighing my options
on how to transfer this image to the glass, I decided to print it
out and enlarge it via an oversize xerox copy. I then traced this
copy on some drafting film with a sharpy marker. When the tracing
was complete, I then scanned it back into the computer. I took
the scan and ran it through the Vector Magic program which yielded
a vector file of the image. I used this computer cut vector image for
the acid etch mask. The rest was executed by hand. It would have
been quite difficult and time consuming to handcut the acid etch
stencil. By tracing it with the sharpy, the computer file yields a
handdone appearance. Also, although the artwork has a symetrical
appearance, it really isn't. If this art was to be vectorized, to save
time, one would probably vector one half of the "symetrical" image,
then mirror it for the other half. If this was done on this art, it would
have ended up looking quite a bit different from the original art provided.
Also, the "perfectness" of vectored line widths, would stray from the
handdone appearance.

So, who can spot the element I left out (on purpose)?

[Tyler Tim]

The printers tag and the signature under the illustration... are two elements I see.

[Larry White]

Good eyes...I don't even see the illustration signature you're talking about!
And, yes, I did leave off the printers signature at the bottom...
but what I was thinking was the letter center ornaments on G.A.Schwarz...
I just went with a plain blended color...gettin' lazy I guess....

Aho!

.

[Larry White]

Why, no. Its... Its not printed, Robert.
Well, that's good. I mean that's good to know.
Otherwise, you'd been thinking wrong.
We wouldn't want to do that.

I took an enlarged, reversed, color copy and registered
it to the face of the glass, I then handpainted the whole
darn thing....musta mixed forty colors.

I had a second copy off to the side to test my colors on.
Its so strange how you don't remember how much I like to
mix colors.

Virtually every color I mixed, had a touch of its complementary
color added to it to tone down the vibrancy of the color, otherwise
the pictorial colors would be too bright and not in balance with
the rest of the piece.

GASvectorfile.jpg (61.5 KiB) Viewed 49869 times

This is the vector art created from the sharpy tracing...
with a few adjustments, you understand.

-Chief Billy

[Tyler Tim]

Good eyes...I don't even see the illustration signature you're talking about!
And, yes, I did leave off the printers signature at the bottom...
but what I was thinking was the letter center ornaments on G.A.Schwarz...
I just went with a plain blended color...gettin' lazy I guess....

Aho!

.

Lazy Larry... Your kidding you used everything but the kitchen sink on this piece. And I'm sure you used that as well . I would not really say the G.A.Schwarz was a not used element as the overall form is the same.

Tim

[Larry White]

Ain't no glue chippin'!

[Larry White]

Well, I ain't much of a printer....I mean, I never have been.

I typically approach a project figuring out how I can
execute it without printing. Often times I define various
areas via a computer, or handcut stencil, for acid etching,
glue chipping, or sandcarving and such. This stencil work
leaves a crisp, hard line, to follow with a brush for bright
lining or outlining. The eye seems to see the crispness of
this defined hardline, more than it sees the inconsistancies
of the brush work next to it. Although, the inconsistancies
of the brushwork give the piece that handdone character.
I gave up trying to make things perfect some time ago.

When the details of piece are too fine to execute with a brush,
I'll pull a squeegee...but I'd rather be swingin' a brush. Pullin' a
squeegee doesn't allow for much expansion of the soul.

Robert, did you see this one?



This one was also handdone artwork used to generate a computer
stencil, then all hand executed.

-BB

.

[Dan Seese]

Really nice, Mr. Blake.
This was surely in progress when I was there a few weeks ago, but you must have had it tucked away somewhere.
Would like to have seen it in person, but these photos are a real treat.
Thanks for posting them.

[Larry White]

It was right there on the easel, turn around and take
a look at it! Good thing it wasn't a snake...woulda bit
ya like a rattlesnake or sumthin'.

It's at 4:50 of Ron's video he posted in "Dead Man 2012" post.

By the time Somethin' in Dunfries rolled around, I had
the acid embossing completed and gilded. Used the
momentum from Dunfries to finish it up. Glad you could
make it out. It was nice to see Tom too. You boys are
welcome anytime. You take care...ya hear.... Aho!

[Dan Seese]

Duh! (forehead smack!)
I remember seeing it now but never focused on it.
Too much to take in there in Dunfries.
Wonder what else I missed.