Well, it looks good from far!!

Hey everyone!

I'm finally back, and I'm done that sandwich board sign that my brother Neil asked me to update for his church's dinner theatre program.  After my sister Kristy and I brainstormed and doodled some ideas, we decided on a layout, and then I put together this idea of basically how I wanted it to look:

Neil had given me the old sandwich board, and the plywood was really too rough to paint on, so we got some pre-primed 1/4" hardboard.  Two coats of gesso, and I was ready to put the pattern down. 

At this point, I was congratulating myself for being so far ahead of the game.  After all, Neil didn't need the board back until February 15.  This thing was going to be a MASTERPIECE!!  People would come from far and wide to see The Sign!  I would be drowning in commissions in no time, because nobody would be able to believe my amazing sign-making capabilities, even though I've never made a sign in my life!  (I have a very rich fantasy life, can you tell?)

Only it wasn't meant to be.  Somewhere along the line, we messed up the dates.  I suspect he said January and I just got it wrong.  At any rate, he called me on Monday night and asked if it was almost done yet. 

PANIC!!! 

On Tuesday evening Kristy came over for a different purpose entirely, but as soon as she walked in the door, she found a pencil in her hand - she got the drama faces transferred to the boards while I started painting with red.  Lucky for me she's easygoing, plus it turns out she's really good at this kind of work!

You know what I really hate about red paint?  IT DOESN'T COVER VERY WELL.

At around 9:30 my brother Dave showed up, and soon found himself with a brush in one hand and an eraser in the other.  Then Mike came home and he got put to work too.  I am an excellent recruiter!

Kristy was very concerned about the paint not covering very well and looking splotchy in places.  I assured her that people would be mostly looking at it while they were driving past it in the dark.  So no worries!  (When you have 24 hours to go, your standards tend to fall away pretty quickly.)

Plus the state of the "before" sign ensured that ours would look good by comparison no matter what we did to it.  Heh.

Here's the almost-finished product, splotches and all:

Mike graciously dug into his personal stash of red reflective tape and put arrows on both signs for me.  Here he is posing with his handiwork.  Can you see his brain?

And finally, here are both sides of the sign.  Neil can figure out how to affix them to the existing sandwich board - my work here is done!

Obviously, I owe Kristy, Dave and Mike a huge thank-you, because there's no way I would have finished this in time by myself.  Plus it was fun working on it as a team - sitting at the kitchen table joking around while we all work together is always a good time. 

All in all, a fun project!  Working big was a refreshing change, but I'm not gonna lie, I'm looking forward to getting back to my paper art journals.  This weekend is going to be a huge treat for me - a bunch of us rent a church hall once a month or so, and spend an entire Saturday working on our art/crafts/scrapbooks/whatever, and that's only two days from now.  I can't wait to see my friends, and I am really excited to spend the day doing art stuff.  Wheeeeee!

With love and rockets,
Shelley!

EDIT:  The sign got lots of compliments - for about a week.  THEN SOMEONE STOLE IT. 

Well.  I guess that is the ultimate compliment.  : )