Kitebuilder.com

[stevef]

I just stumble on this article while surfing. The article was part of "WindWriter's" (South Jersey Kiteflyers Newsletter) It can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Sideline/8309/wwarc/ww10.htm#h

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Painting with Acrylics on Tyvek - by Mike Eason

Greetings to the South Jersey Kite Flyers from another "tako kichi" in the state of Washington. (USA)

As an introduction of myself, I have been actively flying and building kites since 1985 when my family and I just happened to pass through Long Beach, on the Washington Coast, during the Washington State International Kite Festival. We met a warm and generous kite flier from Oregon, Sonny Hamner, in the campground where we were staying. Sonny invited us to go down to the beach with him the following morning to try out his new stunt kite, a Team Hawaiian, then a state-of-the-art new high tech kite. Katie, my wife, still has the reputation all over the west coast of being the only person to ever crush the backbone of a Hawaiian, accordion style, in four places during a single crash. Eleven years later, our lives would not have been the same without our involvement with kiting. We have been active in the AKA, WKA (Washington Kitefliers Assoc.), AOK (Associated Oregon Kiters), the Fort Worden Kitemaker's Conference, and have served as officers in our local club, SCI-FI (Snohomish County Incredible Flying Individuals). Hey, sometimes you have to really dig for those acronyms!

After serving as president of SCI-FI for the past two years I have now semi-retired to the position of Newsletter Editor, which is even more work!

Last year, SCI-FI sponsored a series of workshops. In one of these workshops, Don Mock, whom you may know by his large North Coast Indian inspired kites (see American Kite and Kitelines), taught a class on building a five foot rokkaku kite from white Tyvek. In the following month's workshop I taught a technique of painting Tyvek using artist's acrylic tube colors which, quite honestly, I had first fully tested only two days before. This technique derives at least partially from similar methods that railroad modelers use to color, detail, and weather plaster rock castings, model structures, and weather rolling stock.

Tyvek has been painted, traditionally, with latex house paints by many kitemakers. Latex paints are much the same as artist's acrylic (latex) pigments. They both dilute with plain water and dry to a durable, waterproof film in which opaque pigments are suspended. Where the artist's tube acrylics excel is in their high concentration of very finely ground permanent pigments and in the availability of more saturated, pure colors. This is particularly true in the primary colors: RGB and CMYK (Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black). If you're not familiar with color theory forget all that! Just remember that you can make any color or shade by mixing various amounts of only two primary colors at a time and black or white. Experiment. Even talented artists spend lots of time just experimenting with color mixes to get just what they want.

Tyvek is quite water repellent and the pigments will tend to bead on the surface when diluted with plain water. However, we can make water "wetter" by adding regular liquid dish soap to our dilution mix. Clear plastic drink cups make great mixing containers. Add about a half teaspoon of liquid detergent to a cup full of slightly warm water and mix to fully dissolve the soap. Take another plastic cup and squeeze about an inch of acrylic pigment, straight from the tube into the bottom of the cup. Then add from five to fifteen "eye-droppers-full" of your wet water, depending on the strength of the particular tube color. Mix it well with the same small brush that you'll use for application. You'll have to experiment here a little with each color. Have lots of scrap Tyvek around and make a series of test patches on a sheet, each with progressively greater dilution of the same cup of color. Try to find the range of dilution that progress from a smooth flow of opaque color, that's not too thick, all the way to a very dilute "wash" of just barely perceptible color. If the more dilute washes start to bead on the surface too much, just add some more detergent directly to the mix until it flows smoothly. After you have an idea of how single tube colors mix and flow at different dilutions you can try some combinations of colors. Don't be too surprised when two beautiful colors mix together to make some really ugly brown or grey sludge color. It's often better to lay down a wash of a single color, let it dry completely, and then modify the color with a partial over-wash of a second color.

Acrylic tube colors can range in price from $2.00 to over $18.00 per tube depending on the color and tube size. Grumbacher colors are the highest quality but more expensive. Liquitex colors are less expensive and work great. You may even find a cheaper brand locally. Use the cheapest color you can find. I know my kites probably won't end up in the Louvre', so whatever works is fine. You'll probably want to have available a range of brush sizes, dependent on the size of line and detail you want in your design. A good Japanese brush of small to medium size is indispensable for line and detail work, particularly if you want to work in the Japanese style. These taper to a very fine, long tip of horse hair and are almost always bound into a bamboo handle. We found that artists soft bristle "rounds" from 1/8' to 7/8" were very useful for fills and washes. You'll almost never find much use for any brush over one inch in width or diameter.

Play around for quite a while with the Japanese brush and some "Mars Black" diluted so that it flows easily but is still opaque, sort of like a heavy ink. The Japanese brush is wonderful for fine lines, lines that increase in width with length, and very expressive flips and flares. Use a very light, controlled downward touch with a smooth, flowing, rather rapid horizontal movement. Then try some jabs at the surface, starting at the point and pulling down, and then stopping the motion at the ferrule of the brush with the hairs feathered. Then, for more fun, give it a twist and flick it off to the side at the same time. Cool, huh? Now, if I could only write in Kanji!

Most of the kites we've done with Tyvek and acrylics have been copies of traditional Japanese designs. Tal Streeter's book "The Art of the Japanese Kite" is an excellent source. If you have web access, do a Lycos or other search on the term "Ukiyo-e" and you will find a wealth of downloadable, traditional Japanese block printed imagery including many prints of famous Kabuki theater actors so typical on many traditional Japanese kites. Simply project a slide image onto a wall where you can tape or pin your Tyvek kite and trace the design onto the Tyvek with a soft pencil. Do your painting on a horizontal surface to avoid runs.

When painting your design, start with the lightest washes and colors first, then progressively darker and more saturated colors, and finally, the darkest lines and black. In this order, a darker or deeper color will always cover and cleanly mask each previous layer. Lighter washes or colors over darker ones will only tend to fog out the darker color where they overlap. It's a lot easier to clean up a sloppy edge with a nice black line as the final step.

One last tip that I’d like to pass along but have yet to try on Tyvek myself is that water soluble acrylics can also be diluted and made to flow "wetter" with denatured alcohol. Don't try to use rubbing alcohol, that's different. One is ethyl alcohol and the other is methyl alcohol. I'm sorry I don't remember which is which. If any of you give it a try let me know what happens. Acrylics dry with a fairly flat finish. I coat the whole surface, after thorough drying, with a solvent acrylic spray like Krylon Clear Gloss Fixative, to give the whole kite a nice finish. Krylon and similar products come in matte, semigloss, and gloss versions. Also, when you go to your local art supply store to get acrylics, you will see associated products like matte and gloss mediums and transparentizing medium. These are used to extend, dilute color, or make acrylics more transparent and have great value for extending the range of color and layering effects possible on a tyvek surface. If you're interested, try adding these to your leftovers and do some more tests on scrap Tyvek. The possibilities are almost limitless! -mike eason
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Steve Ferrel
Measure once, buy twice!

[knotronda]

Steve,

Thanks for posting this well written article. A few things I will add is that several thin layers of paint will last longer than one thick coat. Also, painting the backside will intensify the colors.

When working with metallic paints, I have found a stiffer brush works better than a soft bristle brush. I am also playing around with the foils that stick to adhesive. And, I have done Gold Leafing. It does crack a bit because of the stiffness of the product but the effect is interesting.

Remember, whatever product you want to use should be tested on a piece of tyvek before you do your project. You wouldn't want to get your art piece completed only to find that it is deteriorating because you used the wrong product.

Just a few of thoughts.

KR

[Elc0chin0]

Years ago I used to paint on tyvek. I managed to get some from a kite shop in Waco, (I'm sure steve has some of the same). It wasn't as rigid as the stuff you put around homes and made it easy to sew and paint on.

I used basic acrylic paints from hobby shops and even watered them down to make them appear like the inks used in traditional Japanese kites. I don't have any of the kites left as I gave most of them away to auctions. I really can't say how they held up but at the time they looked pretty nice.

The paints seem to work great.

If you know Tinker from Houston I think he has a few. You might want to ask him how the kites held up.
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Pornogami, coupled with gymnastics as an Olympic sport would be hot!

[knotronda]

Nope. I don't know Tinker.

KR