A Sign Painter’s Kit for Broke-Ass Beginners

I have a blog post titled A Sign Painter’s Kit for Beginners, but that was not how I started. As usual, I threw myself into a hobby that no one around me was doing, which meant I had no one to ask about what I needed. The instructions I found online seemed to be geared towards people who already knew the basics. What is a lettering brush and how is it different than a regular-ass paint brush? What is 1 Shot paint and how do I use it without ruining my lettering brushes, whatever those are? What is a pounce pattern for Christ’s sake? Can I put together the ingredients I need to paint signs traditionally with the very, very small expendable income I have from my grocery store job? I didn’t know, but I trusted my usual sentiment – I bet I can figure it out!

It’s easy when picking up a new interest to get tied down by all the “essential” things you don’t have. You look into backpacking and all of a sudden you think you need a $300 tent before you can go on an overnight trip. You want to make a movie but you stop because you don’t have $2,500 to invest in the correct beginner camera. Sure, those “entry level” products work better, but not all of us have the money to start there. I say START WHERE YOU ARE. Do what you can with the resources you have, but no matter what: JUST BEGIN. This is a list of items you can most likely afford on any budget to try your hand at sign painting. If you like it, you can slowly replace your materials with the legit stuff. Here we go:

1. Lettering Brush
2. Paint
3. Small cups
4. Paper, pencil, eraser and ruler
5. Pounce Wheel, Pounce Pad and Chalk Powder
6. All-surface Pencil
7. Brush cleaner
8. Something to Paint Upon

Lettering Brush

What makes a paint brush a lettering brush? Most simply, lettering brushes have longer hairs so you can hold a large amount of paint to pull a solid line without breaks in the stroke. They are usually made from natural hairs of animals, although there are synthetic ones too. There are different shapes and styles you can use to match the kind of lettering you are trying to achieve – block, script, casual, outling letters ect. I think the most versatile brush to start with would be the kind that has a round feral (the piece that hold the hairs to the handle of the brush), long hairs and a square top where the brush ends. This kind of brush will look something like this:

From Left to Right: Utrecht 229 Sablette Size 6, Mack 2962 size 1/8, Wrights of Lymm Sable 1315 size 4. The first two are a bit oily because I have used them with oil paints.

They come in a variety of sizes – smaller numbers mean a less-wide paint stroke. You can get a few sizes, but you really only need one to get some paint on some surfaces. I got my first lettering brush at the local art supply store for $2.82 (I used a 40% off coupon).

 

Paint

Okay, this is the part that might stop you in your tracks at the beginning of your interest in sign painting. Traditional sign painters usually use lettering enamels such as 1 Shot or Ronan Paints. They are expensive, toxic, and you need to know a few things about that kind of paint before using them so you don’t ruin your paint, your brushes or your lungs. That being said, lettering enamels are great! They flow all sexy when you paint with them, most dry glossy, and they are pretty darn weather resistant. For a novice like I was that had little experience with any paints – much less oil based paints – they were a little intimidating.

So what can you use? My solution: house paint samples! In painting letters, you don’t actually need a lot of paint so you don’t have to buy much. In my experience, house paints work better than other types of readily available paints because they have primer mixed into them. The less times you go over a letter in paint, the better it will look. House paint covers in about two coats depending on the color. This is another pro of the lettering enamels – they can usually get the job done in one go. Since you are just beginning, your letters are going to be a little rough anyway so just try your best to cover with two coats of the house paint.

TIP: Most lettering brushes are made from real hair as I said earlier, but the cheap ones are synthetic and I think synthetic hairs actually work better with house paints because they have more spring and clean easily.

You can get house paint samples mixed to the color of your choosing at any big hardware department store and they cost around 3 dollars per sample (about 8oz).

 

Small cups

3 oz disposable cups! Hey, this one isn’t even TOTALLY necessary, but it will help with keeping your container of paint from drying out and helps you palate your brush. Palate is the term used for getting your brush full of the right amount of paint (not dripping, but enough paint to pull a long-ish line without whispy breaks in the paint) and squaring off the top to get an even-thickness stroke and crisp corners. You can do this on a flat surface by pulling the brush back and forth on glossy junk mail or on the edge of your little paint cup. Which ever is easiest for you!

You can get these at most grocery or drug stores in the paper goods section. They cost about $4.50 for a pack of them that will last you a while.

 

Paper, Pencil, Eraser, and Ruler

This is the part you can do before you have money for ANYTHING. If you don’t have these things, I bet someone you know does. You will use these items to layout and perfect your design. Copy someone else’s simple sign or create your own. Some people use a computer for this step, but I usually hand letter my designs. That being said USE REFERENCE. I know it seems easy enough to write some letters but there are lots of rules in action in letterforms that you might not know yet, so just try to copy the details that someone has worked out already. A great resource is Letterhead Fonts. You can plug in the word you want to use in the typesetter and it will show it to you in your selected font. You can then look at that as a reference for your hand lettered design. If you need convincing, I will use an example from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: get a piece of paper and draw a picture of a bike. Now use an actual picture of a bike as reference and then draw a picture of a bike. You will see the difference. This same principle is true with lettering. I promise you will get better results using font/letter reference. Start where you are here too: don’t try to be an expert letterer your first day. Reinventing the wheel at this point is a waste of time if you really want to get good.

RULERS! If you want to take your design from looking like a mess to looking decent with one trick: USE A RULER TO MARK YOUR GUIDE LINES. Make straight top and bottom lines so your letters are the same height (using a T square ruler makes this easier) If you aren’t writing in all capitals, you need a third line that will note where the height stops for your lowercase letters and a fourth saying how low your droppy letters will go like P and Y. You remember this from grade school?

These are not training wheels: you will always mark these lines in lettering layout. You will actually start adding more guidelines as you get deeper into letter design and theory.

 

Pounce Wheel, Pounce Pad and Chalk Powder

These are the materials you need to turn your design into a Pounce Pattern. What is a Pounce Pattern? A pounce pattern is a full-sized pattern made from your design that is perforated on the lines of the image. This allows for chalk to pass through the paper on those perforated lines so when you remove the paper, your image in chalk remains. Pretty cool. You can use other ways of transferring your image such as carbon paper, but I think those lines are much harder to remove or you can use a projector and an all-surface pencil, but if you’re a broke-ass sign painter you don’t have money for that anyway.

How do you put the holes into the paper? You can use a safety pin if you have time and not money, but your best bet is a pounce wheel. They cost around 8 dollars and you can get them at a fabric or craft store (where they almost always have crazy good coupons). It looks like a little pizza cutter with spikes, and it is much faster than a pin.

TIP: perforate your pattern with the pounce wheel on cork board or Styrofoam. It will make the job much easier and your holes more complete.

A Pounce Pad is a thing that holds chalk powder so you can push it through the holes of your pattern. You can buy one of these with the chalk included for under 15 dollars, but you can also make one from stuff around the house! I used an old sock and a string I found. But where do you get the chalk powder? You can buy chalk powder or – you guessed it – you can make your own! I just bought a 79 cent box of chalk and put a few pieces in the blender until it was powdery. Put the chalk powder in the sock, tie it shut tight with the string so the chalk is condensed into a little ball and you can pounce away! Here’s a video showing you how to use a pounce pattern:

You can start the video at 1:00 unless you want to listen the the weird Mario music in the background for the full 3 minutes.

Another cheap but messy chalk option is line chalk. You can get this at the hardware store for under a dollar, but it is VERY fine so it gets all over the place. I use the “non-permanent” blue one because I figured the other ones would stain the surface I was pouncing onto.

All-Surface Pencil

After you have your ghosty chalk image pounced on to the thing you are going to paint your sign on, it’s a good idea to go back over those lines with an all-surface pencil. This way your lines will stay even if you accidentally rub your arm against your sign while you are painting. The all-surface pencils come off with any sort of spray cleaner, but water works pretty well too. You can buy these at an art store, but the best brand is Stablio and you can order one on Amazon for about 4 dollars.

TIP: If the surface you are drawing onto is dark, use a white pencil. If it is light, use a colored pencil. This is the same for chalk powders.

Brush Cleaner

If you are rocking house paints, this is also known as dish soap! What you use to clean your brushes is more important when you move up to enamel paint. Make sure to clean your lettering brushes thoroughly because if paint dries in the heel of the brush (inside the feral where the hairs are bundled together), then your brush might not keep its shape which will make it much harder to keep it palated. (Look at all these terms you now know!)

After the brush is paint free hold the handle of the brush between your palms with the hair end pointed towards the ground and move your hands as if you were trying to create friction to warm them up. This will spin the brush to remove water, as well as letting the brush settle into it’s natural shape.

Something to Paint Upon

Ah, the sky is the limit with this one! Just make sure your surface is clean and get to painting! Starting out I would go with something very flat – experiment with warped woods and other irregular shaped items after you get the hang of things because will be harder to pounce your pattern onto them. You can usually find some blank signs at a thrift store for 1-4 dollars. I used to take old signs that said stupid stuff like Bless this Home or Marriage Means Spending Time with Your Best Friend or whatever and prime and spray paint it to make a new sign that says something like “Whiskey” or “Pigs are Delicious”. But its your sign – you can paint Bless this Home on it if you want to.

OKAY! Lets recap and do the math:

1. Lettering Brush $3 (with a coupon)
   
2. Paint (two colors) $6
3. Small cups $4.50
4. Paper, pencil, eraser and ruler FREE FROM YOUR OR YOUR FRIEND’S HOUSE!
5. Pounce Wheel, Pounce Pad and Chalk Powder $8, $1
6. All-surface Pencil $4
7. Brush cleaner FREE FROM YOUR OR YOUR FRIEND’S KITCHEN!
8. Something to Paint Upon $4 or so

GRAND TOTAL FOR YOUR BROKE ASS SIGN PAINTER KIT:

$30.50

That’s some punk rock shit right there. It could be less if you don’t get cups or a pounce wheel, only use one color and already have something to paint upon. Now you have the tools, but you won’t be a sign painter unless you PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! Now you have NO EXCUSE: get out there and paint yourself or your nice friend that gave you all that stuff a sign!

When you decide you do like sign painting and want to upgrade a little, check out this post.

Happy Painting!

 

Your Friend,

Katy Amber Willis