making progress

After spending a lot of time cutting out various sized vinyl letters, measuring guidelines and laying out and rearranging all the words, I have finished a large step towards completing my poster project.

As you can see, I have finished laying out all of the letters and arranging the words on the poster.  It took quite a while to choose what "T" stations I wanted to have as well as which ones would actually fit.  I had a few stations in mind, mostly the major ones and a few others that I had personal connections to.  I included a few other stations I hadn't planned on, to fill the gaps where words I was expecting to use, didn't fit.  I left a large header and footer and smaller side margins.  I spaced the letters according to the margins and left 1" in between each row. Since I am using pre-cut adhesive letters, I cut them away from their sheets and used tape to put them in the desired locations.  I had to do some switching around to get the layout just so, but I'm very excited to see the final project because I really like the layout.  Before beginning to adhere the letters to the board, I put a very light wash of brown/tan paint and water on some of the letters to give it an aged, weathered appearance.

I started putting some of the letters on and so far have completed three rows.  I feel that the spacing is coming along nicely, and I just hope when I put the final black top coat on, the paint doesn't bleed under the letters.  I'm planning on using a very dry brush coat to avoid any seeping under the stickers.  The image below shows the top three lines with the letters stuck down as well as the "dirty" spots which hopefully appear natural and subtle but add some character.