TRUE TO TYPE 

In my blog ‘PROPER PROPS’, 18 October 2011, I reminded readers that “In pantomime hand props should, wherever possible, be big, bold, bright, colourful, and very visual.” and I suggest that lettering should be large. This applies not only to props, but to scenery as well of course. In ‘Aladdin’, the words ‘TWANKEE’S Swankee Laundry’… or whatever… should be big and bold. On some amateur group’s websites I see pictures of scenery where the lettering is somewhat small and/or spidery.

The illustration right shows a model I made for a washing machine prop to offer as a simple possibility for groups presenting my version of ‘Aladdin’, in which there is a comedy routine using such apparatus.

It’s very basic, but then, providing it looks good, that’s all it needs to be.

The appliance should be a minimum 30 ins. long, 16 ins. wide, and 28 ins. deep, although it could be bigger depending on storage space in the wings.

The typeface is ‘Prawn Handwritten’,

and I reckon in has a kind of Anglicised/Chinese look.

It has never been easier for Joe (or Josephine) Public to produce good quality lettering on props and scenery, and here’s how you do it…

First of all you need a computer, or a willing friend who has one. There are lots of fonts available for download, and I have bought a couple of CDs at charity shops for the grand outlay of 75p.

If you have Word Art or something similar, then the world is your bivalve mollusc.

Type the word or words in the chosen text, squash it, elongate it, change the letter spacing or whatever until you’ve got it as you want, then enlarge it to fit on an A4 sheet… if necessary, flip it so that it runs along the longest length. Then, print it off in outline… no need to waste valuable ink filling in the outline.

Next, scale it up to the finished size. How do you do this? Have a look at – art-is-fun.com/grid-method.html – this explains how to use the grid method to enlarge or transfer an image. Here it’s an illustration, but the same thing applies to lettering.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-XXL-Street-Stencils-%26-Get-Away-WIth-It/step5/Scale-up-your-letters/ - shows the overhead projector method, but it also includes the grid method.

Once you have got the letters enlarged to the required size then, using s craft knife, cut them out as stencils, not forgetting to leave little bridges on the letters A, B, D, O, P, Q, R. Next, position your stencil on the prop or scenery, secure it with short strips of masking tape, and apply emulsion paint by means of a bath sponge (available very cheaply from Wilkinson’s). You can cut the sponge into handy, manageable-size pieces to suit your lettering, but don’t have them too big. Don’t dilute the paint so that it is too runny, and don’t overload the sponge with paint. It’s best sometimes to have a few test dabs on a spare piece of paper.

I find that for one-off stencils, 80gsm paper is quite suitable. It is easily found in A3 size, and sheets can be stuck together with adhesive tape, if required. Using thicker card can result in ‘fuzzy’ edges to your lettering.

Don’t forget to fill in the ‘bridge’ gaps.

You could of course produce quite large individual letters on A4 paper, which would eliminate the need to enlarge them further, but having whole words means that you can get the spacing right, and, if necessary, you can distort the lettering… in an artistic way of course.

It does make sense to choose a font that doesn’t have too many ‘twiddly bits’.