This year’s workshops are now just over three week’s away and that means we have to begin serious work to make them the very best ever. As always, the work begins with the design of the name plaques for our guests. Some use techniques that are familiar , and some will use new techniques. As we get into the painting of them we will explore new techniques and also use them to train our painters in our advanced painting methods.
The first name plaque is a lot like the file I did for the last sign we made last week but we’ll add some hand sculpting to make it very special for Philip – a returning guest from Australia.
As always I began with the lettering vectors. Since this was to go on a piece of driftwood a rough lettering style was perfect. I added a border outline to make it pop off the busy background.
I then used the sculpting tool in the right places to cut some lower spots in the driftwood. The red arrows shop where and the direction I travelled with the brush.
This lettering border was then merged highest with the board relief.
Then I drew the oval plaque shape and a border around it.
I first created a flat relief which would act as the name plate border.
I then used the lettering border as a mask to modify the base relief one more time by adding a flat shape that was just a little higher than the star background. This is the side view render which I used to check my work progress.
Lastly I modified the relief one last time using the letter vectors. I used the bevel tool to create prismatic lettering.
That made Darrel’s name plate ready for tool patching as well.
That’s two of twenty-two name plates. Stay tuned fo
r more…
-dan