Jeff M
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 p.1 #1 · You CAN Paint your own muslin..! | |
This is a repost from the People forum, I guess I had it in the wrong place....
Want to make your own muslin backdrop? I did.
I've been wanting to try my hand at painting a muslin backdrop for a while, but was reluctant for some reason, most likely due to my lack of artistic ability
in the "paint" department.
During a trip to Home Depot the other day, I noticed one of those Faux Painting Kits with a unique double paint roller and tray.
The idea of the kit is to allow you to paint two colors at once, mixing as you went. The finished product looked remarkably like
many of the muslin backdrops I have seen for sale in the $250 and up range. I picked up one of the rollers (not the kit), some disposable two
compartment trays, and three gallons of flat latex paint(Grey, blue, and brown).
I researched plain muslin at the local fabric store and found they carried 90" and 105" widths at around $3.99 per yard up to $4.99 per yard.
I bought 3.5 yards of the 90" for my test backdrop. The cost of materials is as follows:
Faux Sponge roller - $10
10'x 7'5" muslin - $15
3 gallons paint - $27
disposable trays - $2.10
Other items needed, but already had were: a large tarp to paint on, paint roller handle and extension.
Step one was to wash the muslin. Then I laid it out on the tarp to dry and get rid of the store folded wrinkles.
http://home.comcast.net/~jwckmiller/jwckmiller/muslin1.jpg
Next, I applied the grey as a base coat. This used one third of a gallon, un-thinned paint. The material really sucks it up, I had not expected this much
would need to be applied. Here is a look at the sponge Faux roller before it was cut into two pieces.
http://home.comcast.net/~jwckmiller/jwckmiller/muslin2.jpg
Once fairly dry, I poured some blue in one side, and some brown in the other of the disposable paint tray. I cut my sponge roller in two, and put
the on the roller with about a 1.5" gap between the two. Loaded them with paint and started on the outside, and worked inward. This is surprisingly
easy, and by varying the pressure and frequency of your paint strokes, and fairly nice pattern soon develops. Compared to the time it took to paint the
grey ( about 30 minutes) this step took about 15-20 minutes. I paused every so often to look at the muslin from different angles to ensure I wasn't
making some odd repitition with the roller. If by chance you do, you can easily correct it by just re-rolling that spot. Here it is still "wet", but mostly done.
http://home.comcast.net/~jwckmiller/jwckmiller/muslin3.jpg
I pulled the tarp with the wet muslin on it out into the sun to dry for about 20-30 minutes. The finished product is no longer flimsy, but fairly stiff, similar
to a heavily starched cotton shirt. Wadding it up did nothing to the paint, but made some nice wrinkles. Hanging, it looks like this:
http://home.comcast.net/~jwckmiller/jwckmiller/muslin4.jpg
Now if you add up the cost of the above items and apply it to only this muslin, the cost comes to about $55.00 for a 7'5"x10'5" backdrop. For the next backdrops
all I'll need is to buy the $0.69 disposable trays, the muslin, and any different paint color. The amount of color I have left of the blue and brown should be good
for about 10 more of that size, slightly less if they are larger. It is the base coat color that you use the most of. I imagine the cost per backdrop should
average less then $30.00 each once I have the appropriate colors, and depending on the size of the muslin.
If anyone has done something like this and has any tips to share, I am all ears!
-Jeff
Edited by Jeff M on Apr 26, 2005 at 01:57 PM GMT
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