Chalkboard Art Project: details

So lets get started...

Here is how I thought I should approach this:

I started with a simple design 

using a graphics software program 

for Mac called 

The Print Shop 

My cafe styled artwork is called

The Daily Bread

and it lists all of the things we can serve you 

at our little French Cafe!

The finish graphic was printed  out on standard

 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper

 and I left the spacing grids in 

to help with placement

 I started by dividing the board up into quadrants 

 I used simple rulers and a tape measure for this

The font I chose is called Infilto, 

which is one of my favorites !

You can find lots of great fonts just like this one

that can be downloaded for free or there are millions of sites 

 you can purchase great fonts 

for just a few dollars.

 Here we are 

beginning  to add the largest elements 

and some of the type

I really just loosely sketched  

the words and art into the areas that were consistent  

with my computer created graphics

 the banner at the bottom says 

"open daily"

 One of the biggest issues I had was dull chalk ...it wouldn't fit into my pencil sharpener 

so I used a paring knife, 

but it was not the best solution either

Looking at the board at this point

I realized that: 

1.  my bread looked like a Thanksgiving turkey 

and 

2. there was no way I could fit all of those food items 

on to this chalkboard ....

way to much wording

 So I narrowed it down to just three words,

moved the wheat sheaths to the sides of a new bread sketch 

and kept right on going....

 reworking as needed

 Adding a crosshatch border 

was a nice element too

 It took a few times

to get the style of the font 

translated using chalk 

 I have to say, one of the best things about this type of project 

is the ease in which you can wipe off your mistakes

 and try again...awesome!

so here we are...

not finished yet, 

but getting close.... even though my bread now looks like a baked potato

but the basic design is in place

and I learned a lot about the actual process of chalkboard artwork

I will share the finished board on my next post...

Did I mention how much fun this is!!!!?