Vintage Style Sign on Reclaimed Door
Vintage Style Sign on Reclaimed Door
I love using old doors as my canvas for old vintage style signs. You can get a wooden sign that already comes complete with it’s own frame.
As with all canvasses you will have to prime your canvas. Fill in any doorknob or other holes, peel away any chippy paint and cover with a nice all purpose primer.
I’m starting with just painting the edge of my door frame so I won’t have to worry about getting any black paint on my painting. This is just black chalk paint which I always have in my stash.
Now for the background of my painting. The main focus of my painting is going to be a Raven, a little nod to my favorite football team, though I don’t want my picture to scream NFL…so I want my background to be a little dark and moody. After all, the Ravens are named after the poem, The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, and he is definitely dark and moody.
Once I had painted a dark sky and brown grass I just took a paint stirrer and scraped away some of the paint while it was still wet. Voila, branches!
Create your lettering with your favorite font or find your lettering already printed out on line. Many vintage signs were created for taverns or inns so I’m going in that direction.
This beautiful depiction of a raven was also found online. Choose an image with details that line up with your skill. This guy definitely has more detail than what I ended up with. 🙄
Lay out your picture making sure your lettering is the right size for your picture. Not too big, not too small. You want to leave enough room for the Raven. All your elements need to take up the majority of the available space.
None of my elements are painted at this point, these are all just printouts… I’m just visualizing. Mr. Raven could probably be just a bit larger.
Once your happy with all your elements, it’s time to paint. Finish painting all of the background details. For me this is adding some color to my branches. The branches closest to you will have the most detail. The ones farthest away I can leave as is.
My paint is little $1 bottles of acrylics in a bunch of colors poured out on a salad plate.
To transfer your lettering, cover the back of your printouts with pencil, charcoal, chalk or pastel. Tape in place. Trace over the outline of the lettering (or raven) with a pen transferring the outline of the letters to your sign. Paint your lettering the colors of your choice. Treat the lettering just as your would a paint by number just filling in the shapes.
My first rendition had more red in the INN and Nightly and Weekly Rental lettering but I didn’t think the letters stood out quite as well as I wanted against the dark background.
Finish painting the reclaimed door frame with black to complete the natural frame.
A light yellow for the lettering stands out better on the dark background.
Strips of old wood are nailed onto the outside of the door making for a very inexpensive frame.
I finished the entire painting with a coat of clear wax. The wax also finishes the chalk paint black frame nicely.
If you need more inspiration for vintage style signs just include that in a search of my website at the top of this post or check out my Pinterest page, Vintage Style Signs, where I have over 300 pins.
Until next time, stay inspired.
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Nicely done!