Subway stop

Ok, it's not a true subway-style sign, but I decided to take one of the boards from one of our old shelves and make a subway sign. I'm only about 1/3 of the way done.

First, I had to measure the length of the board (36") and then take the phrases I wanted (26 lines of phrases) and space them out on the board. Since the subway style has phrases of all heights and widths, this was actually pretty complicated because everything had to fit, but it wasn't uniform size. And I wanted to leave 1/4" inch in between each row of text.

Then, there's a matter of writing the words in. I suppose I could have just printed out text and mod podged the letters on, but I actually like the idea of the entire thing being MY doing, not a computer's. So, I'm printing out the phrases, line by line.

I'm trying to do mostly straight-line fonts (not fancy cursive or roman-style fonts). But, that means I can still mess around with the width of certain letters and make each line look similar but different than the last.

My plan from here:
1) Finish the lines. I'm only on like line 7, so there's a lot more work to do.

2) PAINT! I want the letters to be dark, and I don't know yet what I want the background to be. The purple I like? Maybe. I haven't decided whether this is going in our home or in my office. The painting will be time-consuming, since there is a LOT of detail work around the letters.

3) Paint in the letters. I have been trying to figure out how to do this, since a paintbrush doesn't generally create the straightest lines. I THINK I'm going to try using a fine felt pen and a small ruler. That way, I can be precise and not have to worry about paint.

It's really a calming project. We watched a movie last night, and I just hunkered down with my board and a pen. Nice.