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Hi,

I'm looking for a painter who can do a good hand painted sign for me for a bar I'm opening.

Anyone know of anyone who's experience in this area? Cambodia used to have some great sign makers who painted these by hand, but I can't find any. So thought it worth casting the net out wide.

Suggestions / links appreciated.

Thanks,

bus-route it is very interesting to see that you would want a hand painted-sign, and was you wanting a traditional sign, to say in Cambodian style. There is a little on the internet about the history of sign painters here, and I quote "a little" without delving in too deep at this stage. But I would expect it's like modernisation and new materials, the market moves on to new climbs, unfortunately forgetting the old ways of how things were once done. Unfortunately, it's those old past skills that don't get passed on to the apprentice, students and teachers dwindle, but most sadly the tradition and the skills will be lost to what we may call "today's progression".
In my apprentice days in the commercial vehicle paint shop, I was given the tools that were to be my trade, spray gun and a handful of worn paintbrushes of about 10 years old, well cared for by their previous hand. I would eventually, that is after learning my trade, be referred to has a "brush man". I was to paint by hand everything that myself and the other sprayers couldn't get, or left dry (overspray) with awkward angles or unreachable areas, that is why there's two or more spray-painters working on commercial vehicles, it's mainly to reduce the amount of overspray by maintaining the surface is wet. The brush man would then finish off, not forgetting that the paint finish had to mirror the same coatings from the skills of the spray-painters.
The back dish of fuel tankers (petrol tankers) would be more than likely be brushed and laid off to a mirror finish. Once the surface was dry, it was the time for the sign writer to put the lettering of the oil company, leather ball end of his wooden mahl stick would just give him a little support while the letters would form in a long free flowing stroke of a steady hand and keen eye.
Pre-cut vinyl would reduce the trade and tradition of the more personal touch, too the commercial advertising we have in today's world.

Cambodia’s fading history of hand-painted signs

As the country develops more quickly than seems technically possible, Cambodia’s landscape is increasingly filled with glitzy billboards for Korean products and commercial electronics ads. Even so, you’ll still find a dwindling numbers of traditional hand-painted signs all over the country.

https://www.movetocambodia.com/art-cult ... ted-signs/

https://www.creativebloq.com/inspiratio ... ns-7133455

Another alternative, maybe to visit the Factory, now run by an artist.

I think the correct terminology is - - - Signwriter rather than "Painter".

OML

Regrettably I can’t help with contact details for any sign writers in Cambodia, but I can appreciate why you want hand painted signs.
A lad I was at school with (back in the 70s) served his time as a sign writer, and amongst the jobs he used to get were painting the names, registration numbers and the name of it’s home port, of commercial fishing boats. In time he ended up doing the sign writing on most of the fishing boats on the north east coast of England (due to the nature of boat use, the names etc. would require redoing regularly, though the reduction in the size of the fleet didn’t help business). I would often stop to watch for a while if I saw him working on a boat, chalking in the outlines of the scrolls and the various fonts for the lettering, then the painting would begin. He had a large wooden box with dozens of small pots of enamel paint in all colors, and another box for his brushes, everything he used for his craft had an aged, though well cared for appearance.
As Andy says, he used a piece of stick a couple of feet long with a small ball on one end (I think it was a piece of rag wrapped I leather) which he would hold in one hand against the work in progress, resting his brush hand on the stick so as not to smudge the paint and to help steady his hand.
He used the same brushes for years (probably still got them) and it was fascinating watch the various techniques for applying the paint depending on whether it was blocking out or shading or blending the transitions between different colors, the finished jobs were works of art, he was (still is) a real craftsman.
Modern printed signs, or more often or not vinyl decals, may do the job, but they’re not a thing of beauty like a well painted sign.
I hope the OP manages to track down a genuine sign writer, and if he does, he should try and watch the whole process, as he’ll be witnessing a dying art (no pun intended)