Signing the painting, is it about a personal identity crisis, like, this is what I do?  Is it a ‘thumbs under the lapels’ look what I can do?  Maybe it’s the selfish mode, “hey, that’s mine and I thought of it first”!

There could be a positive aspect as well, you know!  How about “complete, done, finis!”  We do allow the phrase “ I am pleased with this painting”, don’t we?  And what about your basic record keeping, for historical purposes, for those of us who will be famous some day, heheheh.

Let’s move on to the rules department, where I discovered everyone makes up their own!  I  enjoy this first set of rules whose author goes by this logo: "smart4art"

 
Sign it unobtrusively, trying to blend your signature into either the color or value. Traditionally, in Western culture we sign in the bottom right Conner. You may date it as well. You want the painting to be the thing that is noticed first, not your signature. To sign in RED  or any other loud obvious color shouts out : "I have an enormous ego which is much more important than this painting of mine",
You can sign with a small sharpie or with a small liner brush in oil or acrylic. Just be sure that your signature is not that noticeable.

Now it’s time for a quick visual:   note the signature, lower right J

Several years ago, I worked very hard at hiding my signature into the composition of the painting.  I would look for a line already going the right direction, and use a fine point Sharpie and the smallest lettering known to mankind.  I was talking to a painter friend at an exhibition where I had two paintings hanging.  She said “Karen, I can tell these are yours, but where is your signature?”  My response:  “oh, it’s there somewhere.”  We spent the next five minutes trying to locate it.  I will always remember her next comment---“You are pleased with these paintings, you have to be or you wouldn’t have them hanging here.  Sign them like you mean it”

Thus evolved the Cooper rules of signing the painting:

(1)  Sign it like you mean it!  (Thanks Avis) 

(2)  Sign it on the front, not the back.  How often are you allowed to take a painting off the wall to look at the back to see who painted the thing?

(3)  Be consistent.  And sorry ‘smart4art’, I do it in red!  And it’s not an ego thing as suggested.  I know very few artists who don’t agonize over the quality of each and every one of their paintings, and I include myself in that membership!   I sign in red because I like red.  It makes me feel good.  It’s one of the six blobs of paint on my palette, and it figures prominently in each painting I complete.  I only use one name when I sign, I figure it gives me half as many chances to mess it up.  There are an amazing number of people in the world with my full name, so adding both to the front of the canvas would just take up extra room with out narrowing down the mystery much.

Robert Genn at Painters Keys has (as always)  some words of wisdom on this subject:

Signatures are a window to the machinations of personality. But then again, you are you, and your signature is part of your entity. It's your life. Sign your life as you would live it.

So let’s revert back to paragraph three.  The real rules for signing a painting are the ones you make up.  They are good rules because you make them and they work for you.  A good painting is the artist’s expression of a subject they care about, and that’s pretty personal.  Sign it like you mean it.

Later, Cooper

ps.  Is this post too long yet?  How about a couple of quick images of paintings that I am going to run right to the studio and sign?!  Yeah, hot off the easel!

  School's Out, acrylic painting on a gallery wrapped canvas, it measures a lovely 30 x 30 inches and was just added to my portfolio.  Here is a full screen view!

  Knowledge Found In Quiet Places, 20 x 20 inches, also an acrylic painting on a gallery wrapped canvas.  Yup, this one will get it's signature and a coat of varnish today, but I've already put it in the portfolio, as well!  (zoom view here)