The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-04-12
BIG PICTURE ADS.
Painting Them Requires Little Skill,
 But Implicit Obedience.

When man walking along the side walk sees another man suspended fifty feet above him painting nostril six feet long or an eyelash five feet long the chances are ten to one that the pedes- trian will stop minute to wonder how the painter with his face so close to the picture can get the exact proportions of the human face, says the New York Times. If any one should tell the spec tator that never in his life until today had the man up there tried to paint human face the information would be received with laugh of scorn. Yet it is no uncommon thing for an ordinary sign painter to be employed to paint a picture of Jim Dumps or William Penn or any other face used for advertising purposes.
 Why is this? Simply because it Is mere ly matter of measurements and 'ac- curacy, and requires no artists skill The pedestrian on the pavement doesn't see it, but the whole wall on which the picture is being painted is laid off into @ number of squares made by intersecting chalk lines. The exact spot in each of these lines where the tip of the nose or the toe of the foot shall be is as fixed as is the day for the next eclipse of the sun.
 A visitor asked the head designer in an outdoor advertising firm if it wasn't hard to get men skillful enough to paint these exaggerated pictures.
 The other day." replied the designer,
 I got man who had never painted any thing but letters in his life to put a face twenty feet high on q wall, and he did 1t as well as 1t could be done"
 Then he showed how the only part that took any skill was done in his own office. First he or some other designer drew small picture, about quarter life size, on piece of square cardboard. When this was done, the piece of card board was divided by pencil lines into sixty-four squares, so that it's form was just like that of a checkerboard. This was given 10 painter. and 1t was told him that each square on the paper meant one fifteen feet square on the wall
 Then it was easy for the painter to lay off with colored chalk squares of the required size on the wall. When he began to paint, he took the designers drawing with him. There were explicit directions as to colors and the kinds of brushes to be used. Then it was only matter of proportion. If the nose occu- pied half a square on the paper it occu- pied half the corresponding square on the wall, and if the button of the coast was at the intersection of two pencil lines, 1t must be at the same intersection of the chalk lines.
 The designer said that it was a very common occurrence for him to send one man to finish a picture that another man had begun. Once he had three men paint ing the same figure, taking turn about un- til the job was complete.
 Its purely mechanical" he said. 'If we catch a man using his own ideas or trying to display any originality we get rid of him immediately Suppose a man took notion into his head to try a few fancy strokes and we had to put another man at it the next day. Wouldn't that picture be q pretty mess?''
 The average painter of large pictures earns about $30 a week. A larger salary IS very rare It is never hard to get the man you want, the designer says be- cause anybody that is used to a paint brush and can make measurements Is able to do the work