Welcome Sign

Another welcome sign available on Etsy

I got our Christmas tree today but haven't set it up yet. Tomorrow we decorate! I'm going to take a lot of photos. It's a smaller tree than I had planned on but I carried it home for one and a half miles so I couldn't get a huge one. It's still a good size. I just wish we had a couch or something comfortable for the living room so we would like to hang out in there. It's a cold and uncomfortable room, though it's very pretty.

Back to the Martini Bar

The other bar sign I made sold very fast! So here is another one.

Martini Trio Bar Sign For Sale

I also am working on a wine bar sign. I love these signs! I may do a separate Etsy store for just signs eventually. I'm planning some changes in my store, will probably not be selling the smaller items in my main art store, but just selling large paintings and prints. But I do enjoy painting these small signs. I'd also like to do some street fairs with them.

Anyway, I have to go shovel snow. My mantra when I shovel snow is: It's good exercise, it's good exercise, it's good exercise. I imagine my abs becoming very firm by spring. But I totally don't want to do it right now.

Martini Bar

When I lived in San Francisco in the early 90s I used to paint a lot of bar and cafe signs on wood. Now I am revisiting my past. This is one I just finished.

I got all these pieces of wood that have holes drilled in them with metal reenforcements and really silly pieces of string as hangers. So I got rid of the string and put brass wire, with spirals at the ends to hold it and I think it looks very good.

Martini Bar Sign on Etsy

Cosmic Cafe Sign

Cosmic Cafe Sign, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I've started doing a series of signs on wood.

In the early 90s I used to make a lot of signs and sell them in a store on Haight Street when I lived in San Francisco.

I love painting on wood. Once I mentioned this to someone and they launched into this long series of instructions for how to paint on wood: first, sand the hell out of it. Then put on many, many coats of gesso until it is totally smooth.

But that's not painting on wood, that's painting on gesso! I like painting on naked wood, so that the grain shows through. Sometimes I use transparent colored glazes on it so the wood shows through even more.

A lot of what I like is the way the paint absorbs into the wood very fast. If you gesso the wood, you don't get that beautiful absorption.

Anyway, here's my Cosmic Cafe sign on etsy