History for bwtcf

I use the same material Patrick mentioned from Spotlight. Made the Crouded House banner with it.

Use acrylic paint. Spotlight have a good range.

Use a pencil to stencil / outline things before painting.

If you have one a metre ruler is REALLY useful.

If you are just doing lettering (like the Crouded House banner) you probably only need two brushes. I uses one about 2.5 cm wide for most of the lettering, and a smaller one about 0.75 cm wide for fine detailed edging.

Tips for young players - for a two pole banner with words and no pictures (larger Tifo is different):

1. Remember to measure and leave enough material for the pole pockets at each end. Get your pole, position it and physically wrap the material around it, leaving about 0.5 cm to 1.0cm extra so you can fold it over when sewing the pocket. Do the left hand pocket before you start. Don't cut the right hand end of the material or measure out the right hand pocket until you have finished stencilling the letters. (See 9. below)
2. Leave about 10cm margin at the top and bottom of the banner. Measure it and rule a pencilled line 10cm from the top of the material to mark where the top of the letters will be. (This keeps the tops of the letters aligned).
3. Leave a similar 10 cm margin at the bottom.
4. With a 1.2 metre fabric that leaves you 100cm between the top and bottom margin lines.
5. Assume you are going to have two rows of words - leave a 10 cm gap between the rows. That leaves 90 cm for the two rows i.e. 45cm per row.
6. Rule a horizontal line parallel to the top and bottom margins to mark where the bottom of the top row of letters and top of the bottom row of letters will be. i.e. 45cm below the top margin, and 45cm above the bottom margin.
7. Work out how many letters you have to paint. Not all letters are the same width.
8. Stencil the letters with your pencil - ruling a half way line 22.5 cm between each row's top and bottom line helps identify where the middle is - useful for letters like S G E F B R etc.
9. Once you have stencilled the letters, measure the pocket for the right hand pole, and cut the material from the roll. This will make it easier to move around as you paint etc.
10. Lay down newspaper under the banner - as Patrick said the paint will soak through it.
11. Squeeze some of out the paint onto a piece of corrugated cardboard or wood. about the size of the yoke of a fried egg is usually a good amount.
12. Begin painting the letters. Do the edges SLOWLY. It's hard to unpaint. Once the edges are done paint in the middle of the letters.
13. Be careful about where you lean - hands and forearms etc. on wet paint can easily then stuff everything up.
14. If you are painting outside, use some weights to hold down the edges of the fabric. Wellington is windy and if a gust picks up your banner when the paint is wet it's a big Fudge Up
15. If you are using a colour other than black you might need more than one coat. For the white parts when I did the Union jack for example I needed three coats.

If you have a steady hand, you can do it free hand and don't need to use masking tape. I did the crouded house banner without any masking tape.

However, using masking tape is a REALLY GOOD idea. It takes longer to mask it up, but it gives MUCH better results. Mask it up, paint, wait for the paint to dry and then peel the masking tape off.

BUT BE AWARE...

...if you do use masking tape you need to pay a LOT of attention to how well the masking tape is stuck down. Run you thumb along EVERY cm of the edges of the masking tape which you will paint over. If you don't do this some parts of the edge of the masking tape will have little air bubbles under it and the paint will seep under it and the edges will have wonky bits - little bulges out under the tape.

Trust me, when you peel back the masking tape once the paint is dry you'll be gutted.