The Making of "Melon Patch"

The preliminary sketch

I established the overall size of the sign and then penciled in the letters freehand. Once I had them done, I started cutting them out.

I moved them outside where I could paint.

I used a fun color scheme.

Here I'm cutting out the picket fence background element.

I dry-fitted the letters on the background and decided it was harder to read than I wanted. The background was too busy, which made it fight with the lettering. I needed to make the lettering really stand out.

I resolved the issue by adding a thick black border to the lettering.

I was satisfied with the look.

Next, some accent elements... these came in the form of some melons and vines.

Then it was just a matter of assembling with foam tape.