More signs and a Church Steeple

Albert Herrings Fruit & veg shop

This week was my first week with the first years. Their schedule, at the minute, is to rotate every three weeks round all the departments to have a taster of each one. They can use this time to work out which department they plan to spend their time in.
The first 3, Micha, Josh and Jackie were given a painting project for the first week and were scheduled to work on Albert Herring the following week. This gave me time to organise what jobs I could give them, considering what could allow them to become familiar with the space and materials used.


Myself and Luisa were the only ones fulltime in the paintshop the week working on production.
I decided to get all the signs and anything outstanding finished as I was expecting the house to be available for painting next week and I wanted to give it some attention.
Luisa wanted a go with lettering so she worked on the green grocers sign.
I passed as much of my previous experience onto her and off she went to 'get on wae it!'

 The sign was so wide that our projector was almost out of the paintshop door. It was almost impossible to get sharp lettering at that distance and the slight bends in the wood cause the light to bend by the time it reached the shop sign, so we had to trace it in sections taking care to keep it straight.
Running a line of string across the top and bottom of the letters helped us keep it in a line.

 Whilst Luisa was busy with the sign - I worked on the door :

This door was flat except for the front decorative panels. So the paint finish would have to use a little 
trompe l'oeil
I asked Luisa to paint corkboard onto a measured sheet of ply, using different browns splatter/sprayed from the air gun. Then added a dropshadow and some highlights. (it's upside down at the minute)

 When I weathered the green door by lightly drybrushing a yellow on top I masked between each plank at the border giving my a sharp edge and making the planks look separate.

Luisa turned her hand to a little 'blocking'

 

 

 That is using a small piece of wood to transfer the paint onto our door for that chipped paint effect!

ready for its letterbox and handle!

 With the door done, Luisa worked on and finished the Newsagents cigarette advert

 Karen finished her work on 'The Cock'sign which could now be sent back to carpentry to have it placed into it's frame and welded onto the scaff pole.

 Whilst these were being finished I painted the Church Steeple.
Every decent village should have a church with a steeple and Albert Herrings village was no exception.

Gary suggested the weathered effect on the steeple could be done with textury rollers.

 so.. with 2 different grays and a water pump, I did combinations of rolling and spraying til I had most of the steeple covered. I then spattered some grey all over on top.

I brought some shading back in by spraying black into the corners and from the back.
The steeple was supposed to be black lead, Gary suggested we mix some graphite powder into some glue and roller it all over. It had a very sudbtle sheen but also dulled the contrast a little on the actual grey texture.
I brought a little light shade back with some light grey spatter.

 I hardly saw much of the first years this week, which meant we kept on schedule and accrued a few items that I could delegate to them next week.
I alloted them jobs that I thought they could handle without stress at the same time I could judge if they were willing for challenges.

Next - Lady Billows' house - part one