Come to find out, hand painting a sign is not as easy as it looks. Lots of plotting, taping and patience was required to achieve this result. Even though this project was difficult and time-consuming, I enjoyed this process immensely and am pleased with the results!
Flanked by a giant ice cream cone rather than a silo, Jack's barn is the most popular ice cream joint in town! This illustration was developed in Illustrator.
Little did I know that for days I’d see pencils, rulers, and x/y coordinates whenever I’d close my eyes. A good deal of concentration and elbow grease was poured into this sign.
To maximize the graphic’s adhesion to the already painted sign, I applied a base layer of primer formulated to adhere to glossy surfaces. Using a simple grid, I manually plotted the silhouette of the design and drew the grid back in over the primer once it dried.
After tracing the image in based on the points I plotted from the grid, the methodical taping and painting of each color layer began.
Dry time of several hours was required between each layer and color of paint.
This hand-painted stroke is for the graphic style., black lines on ice cream in real life, if means dark chocolate drizzle. 😋
The text of this design is the only element for which I used stencil material. I cut the stencil material on my 12-inch vinyl plotter.
The stencil was never perfect on rough surfaces like wood. Each letter was touched up with an artist brush. after removing the stencil.
The finished product was well worth the extra effort. Fun fact, this concise list of photos hardly does the process justice. Ultimatly, the project took over a month to complete.
Jack requested the font be changed so the "J" had a more pronounced tail.
