Signwriting in Sudbury with Wayne Tanswell
23 January 2015
Last weekend I took the 7:09 train from Stratford to get up to Sudbury, Suffolk, for a workshop with traditional signwriter Wayne Tanswell. Along with fellow participant Neil we spent the day learning some signwriting skills from Wayne, chatting about letters and sharing plenty of tea and biscuits. Here’s a collection of photos from the day, click on the first one for a slideshow with commentary.
-
- It was an early start on a cold morning. I arrived in Sudbury (end of the line) just as the sun was creeping over the horizon.
-
- Wayne met me at the station, the frost still sitting on his hand-painted van.
-
- A drive through town and a look at some of Wayne’s work on the street.
-
- Wayne’s brother runs the local bakery, signwriting kept in the family of course!
-
- Is this Britain’s smallest bakery?
-
- Here’s Wayne outside his workshop/studio, chilling out before getting down to the painting.
-
- A bit later in the day the sun caught this sign nicely.
-
- A bit of self-promotion work on the outside of the workshop.
-
- Wayne is a self-confessed messy signwriter, as evidenced by his paint shelves.
-
- Wayne showed up some of his past, and current, sign boxes.
-
- Wayne talks through some of the techniques used to transfer designs, includnig chalking and pouncing.
-
- Brushes sorted by size, nearly all A.S. Handover series 2112, Wayne’s brush of choice.
-
- Who needs fancy oils to keep the brushes in shape, multipurpose grease is just a fiver a tub.
-
- Wayne’s class featured a mixture of demonstration and practise. We worked with a series of basic strokes to create a simple script alphabet before moving on to some Roman letters.
-
- We then got to work on a board which Wayne helped to lay out and we got to paint.
-
- Neil’s board is for his flat, nicknamed the Frog Pad by his girlfriend.
-
- I got to grips with using a mahl stick which I’m gradually starting to favour over other techniques. Here I am adding some shadowing to my sign.
-
- Wayne shows how its done with a blended shade while I take a phone call.
-
- Here’s the aftermath on Wayne’s paint station.
-
- All done and dusted. My paint station sign will be used at future Better Letters workshops.
Wayne’s website has more details of his workshops and private tuition. Events outside Sudbury can be arranged through Better Letters. Wayne has also written two books and produced a DVD for those that want to learn more. Thanks for hosting me Wayne, looking forward to another one in the future.