Signs Story 1:04
My journey continued through parts of Europe and I ended up in Kent, England. My first week on the coast, I tried to cheer my partner up by scratching the word SMILE in the sandy beach in huge, huge letters visible from the cliff tops. My sign didn’t work. We split up. But a gent walking along the seafront approached me . “ Did you do those letters?” “Yes I did.” “ Could you do them in Paint ?” “Of course, I am a Sign Writer.”
He drove me out to the local airfield and got me to paint 6 - 30 foot tall letters atop of 6 -giant petrol tanks. That was the beginning of eight years of sign writing in England.
My next stint was carving and colouring wooden models on Antique reproduction signs - like the ones you can now buy for 49 bucks for your den. I got 40 quid each and I was told they went to America to retail for 350 dollars. I then travelled town to town, each train stop from Margate to London looking for a place to call home. I freelanced as I went in historic places like Sandwich, Herne Bay, Faversham, Canterbury, Royal Tunbridge Wells, gathering adventures, experience, new friends and many tales along the way. I found my new home in Uxbridge (west London) and a mid sized company to join, that along with traditional hand-painted signs was one of the first in England to have a sign making computer. They saw the best of the old ways and the new.
As I gained mastery of the computer, I likewise gained mastery of the airbrush, something I thought then a computer could never do. But it wasn’t too long before digital colour printing evolved. But before it became cheap, I hand painted and airbrushed over 200 traditional English pictorial pub signs in south-east England over the next 6 years. As well, I was one of the first to professionally use coloured chalks in elaborate indoor display messages on the many chalkboards found in every one of those pubs.
He drove me out to the local airfield and got me to paint 6 - 30 foot tall letters atop of 6 -giant petrol tanks. That was the beginning of eight years of sign writing in England.
My next stint was carving and colouring wooden models on Antique reproduction signs - like the ones you can now buy for 49 bucks for your den. I got 40 quid each and I was told they went to America to retail for 350 dollars. I then travelled town to town, each train stop from Margate to London looking for a place to call home. I freelanced as I went in historic places like Sandwich, Herne Bay, Faversham, Canterbury, Royal Tunbridge Wells, gathering adventures, experience, new friends and many tales along the way. I found my new home in Uxbridge (west London) and a mid sized company to join, that along with traditional hand-painted signs was one of the first in England to have a sign making computer. They saw the best of the old ways and the new.
As I gained mastery of the computer, I likewise gained mastery of the airbrush, something I thought then a computer could never do. But it wasn’t too long before digital colour printing evolved. But before it became cheap, I hand painted and airbrushed over 200 traditional English pictorial pub signs in south-east England over the next 6 years. As well, I was one of the first to professionally use coloured chalks in elaborate indoor display messages on the many chalkboards found in every one of those pubs.
posted by Cliff Perry at 10:27
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