LizzieMaine
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The real artistry in the old Coca-Cola signs is that they were done entirely freehand. Modern, that is, post-1950 "walldogging" was done largely thru the use of what's called a "pounce pattern," a perforated paper sheet that's dusted with chalk powder to lay guidelines onto the wall for the painter to follow. But while the wall dogs of the Era used specification books issued by The Coca-Cola Company in planning their signs, the actual work itself was done entirely by eye -- they'd lay out a grid in their minds based on counting bricks up and bricks down, and, using the specification book, they'd paint the sign from that.
The skill involved in doing a job like that is almost beyond comprehension, especially when you remember that they're (1.) often doing this on a scaffold several stories above the street and (2.) they have no way of getting a full view of the work in progress from where they're working. And you can also add in (3.) many of them worked with their minds fogged from years of slowly-accumulating lead poisoning.
Sign painters of the Era had a mythological personification, "Slappy Hooper," a sort of Joe Magarac/Paul Bunyan type of character in paint-smeared overalls, who was so good at his job he could paint ads on clouds, but the reality is that all those guys had larger-than-life skills.
The skill involved in doing a job like that is almost beyond comprehension, especially when you remember that they're (1.) often doing this on a scaffold several stories above the street and (2.) they have no way of getting a full view of the work in progress from where they're working. And you can also add in (3.) many of them worked with their minds fogged from years of slowly-accumulating lead poisoning.
Sign painters of the Era had a mythological personification, "Slappy Hooper," a sort of Joe Magarac/Paul Bunyan type of character in paint-smeared overalls, who was so good at his job he could paint ads on clouds, but the reality is that all those guys had larger-than-life skills.