To Lynne in April - more sign painter talk

Stamps with tiny little details in the images are delightful. The colors are also welcoming. These letters are similar to the one to Irene - and seems like they are more squared off and Irene's were rounder. I do not even remember which I did first - and do not prefer one over the other. If I were to do a third - I think I would smoosh the letters closer together and make them more 3D - like little pots sitting in a row. Although that is probably a bad idea - my looser more abstract stuff tends to be better.

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I remembered another sign painter story. It was from a sign painter who was giving a presentation on the very first guild meeting that I ever attended. In addition to sign painting, he did hand lettering on trucks. He talked about how preparing the surface was step one whenever you were hand lettering. He then told about the people who came to him for real lettering on their semi tractors - those huge vehicles driven by truckers. They valued the shine on the paint job on the truck - and it was essential that the shine be preserved. 

He said - something along these lines:

Well, if you want the paint to stick - you have to give the paint something to stick to - which means you need to *de-gloss* the area where the lettering will go. 

I'm not sure that's the right term, but you get the idea. Of course, when the sign painter explained this - the trucker would often object - saying NO. To which the sign painter would reply: Do you want the paint ON the truck or OFF the truck?

That line inspired me to ponder debatable issues - and get better at determining when there are some baseline requirements ---