Home for the boat - at last

Well over a year ago I fabricated a little boat as a name plaque for one of our attendees at our Sign Magic Workshops. While I was at it I routered a second copy as a sample for our shop. I'll post a how-to another time on that project. It was my intention to incorporate the little boat (named after my wife Janis of course) into a larger sign at some point. But like all good intentions the project languished on a shelf - until recently.

As I often do I was sketching while relaxing and watching TV. Inspiration hit me and I came up with a cool idea to create a sign which incorporated the boat. I would use a square shape but tip it 45 degrees and then put a scroll in front. The magic however was the bracket I would use to hold up the sign. Ultimately I would change it slightly from the sketch but the idea was good enough to proceed.

I created the vector file in EnRoute using the drawing tools. As I often do however, after drawing the perfectly square and straight lines I used the freehand tool to go over them and wiggly them up some - deleting the straight lines afterwards. The design was developing some character already.

Next up was creating the reliefs and the necessary textures. Stay tuned...

-dan