Mysterious artist destined to remain unknown

This past week, a man called to hire me. He wanted me to draw a pencil portrait based on a photo of his wife and young child.

He said that his parents had hired an artist when he was a child, so he had a nice pencil portrait of himself and wanted a similar keepsake of his baby son. He said he would try to contact the artist who did the previous portrait, but the signature was unreadable.

So the client asked for me to please make sure I signed the artwork, that it was readable, and even to print my name and phone number on the back of the paper!

I've always wondered why artists spend a lot of time and care on their works of art, but when they get to the signature, they just scribble it. I wonder if they think that if their signature is undecipherable, people will work harder to discover who they are - that the mystery is part of the excitement - or is it that some famous artists had unreadable signatures, so they want to be like them?

It's a bad idea to be lazy about your signature, especially if you are doing it on purpose. If someone sees your art hanging somewhere, and they can't read your signature, how can they possibly locate you? Who knows how many opportunities you could miss if someone couldn't read your name! So take your time to make your signature both readable and attractive.