Genuinely thinking about having a crack at one of these when I get some spare time / am drunk enough to be creative. Where's a good place to buy yellow fabric?
Spotlight is the best. I go with Top Pop Poplin, 1.2m and canary yellow, it's $5.99 per metre.
It's a little bit thin, so if you are painting it make sure you put newspaper down. Perfectly strong though.
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):
- 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)
- 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).
- Leave a similar 10 cm margin at the bottom.
- With a 1.2 metre fabric that leaves you 100cm
between the top and bottom margin lines.
- 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.
- 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.
- Work out how many letters you have to paint.
Not all letters are the same width.
- 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.
- 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.
- Lay down newspaper under the banner - as
Patrick said the paint will soak through it.
- 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.
- 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.
- Be careful about where you lean - hands and
forearms etc. on wet paint can easily then stuff everything up.
- 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
- 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.