Marbling paint onto vinyl tarp experiment.

A piece of backlit vinyl tarp is prepped with sanding and then I threw a bunch of marine paint on it and mixed it around with a palette knife. The paint is System Three's WR-LPU paint. I know that it is over-mixed and actually not that good looking at all. Next time I'll plan it out. There are a lot of videos out there showing interesting marbleizing/paint-over-water prints, a.k.a. ebru technique. Example

My main goal is to see if I can get good adherence. This paint peels off in one big, flexible layer if the substrate is not well-sanded. I'll sew it into a wallet if the paint sticks well enough.

Update: I tried to put it on my Cricut Expressions cutter, but the slight differences in height between painted and unpainted caused the wallet to skip as it cut, ruining it. My conclusion is that hand cutting would be better when using this type of painted tarp for wallets. 

Motorcycle Cover

I have a fabulous client, Sarah, who wants to give her husband a motorcycle cover for his cruiser-style motorbike.

A while ago, I would have said this kind of thing is not possible because vinyl covers for boats, barbeques and motorcycle covers typically have a fabric lining underneath.

But this time, I thought that if I could successfully glue some fabric onto the underside, then recycled billboards could be used without scratching or sticking to the item that they are covering.

I did an experiment where I glued an old T-shirt to a section of tarp with Vynabond. It adhered well, so now I am going ahead with the design.

I asked my client for some measurements so I could get the geometry of the cover. I used TouchDraw on the iPad to make a scale model.  With this scale model I can easily determine the length of the outside edge and the angles over the handlebars and seatrest.  (The picture doesn't show the actual model of the client's motorbike, I just put it in for reference.)

I'm going to use some flannel sheets for the fabric lining.

Notebook experiments

Here's a "cane chair mesh" notebook and a "What The Heck" notebook. The word "What" is on the spine of the book on the right. The Cane Chair mesh has a rather unsuccessful stencil font which says "Inspiration always arrives unannounced." The insert is also not the right size.  the What The Heck notebook is made out of a fibrous tarp which is rather too fibrous in my opinion.  I had hoped that these would have turned out, but it seems they require more iterations.

(As I write this I think I'm going to use the cane chair mesh on a decorative box to store my music books. That way I can put the shelf back on the floor. I had been keeping it on top of the piano while our puppy matures into a non-chewer.)

At the end of it all, when I have completed all the background work, will hopefully be some nice products. It takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work to produce something worthwhile.  Only the best items will make it onto my online shops.

Cane Chair Mesh Journal Cover

This is a test cut of a mesh design based on the classic "hole-cane" design on chairs with woven reed seats.  To arrive at the geometry,  I experimented in Adobe Illustrator with a number of long rectangles until I found something that looked similar to the pattern.  Then merged the shapes, Compound path...release to arrive at the hole pattern. Export to SVG, import into Sure Cuts A Lot, size to fit, and so on.

In the lower right of the photo I was experimenting with a stencil font. It features the quote "Inspiration always arrives unannounced," by Vanna Bonta. The font is too small in this experiment so I'll have to enlarge the quote.  The reason I'd like to put quotes on the notebooks is that I'd like to have notebooks feel good in the hand and inspire the creativity of the owner. Lately I had been using my iPad for journalling; but I'm going to go back to coil notebooks because I like, for example, to see my old ideas and different insights and the pains that I've worked through.

I like how the cane chair mesh looks. I might try it on a wallet. I think I'll keep on the lookout for an old cane chair and replace the seat and back with my mesh. It would be a cane chair with a pattern!

This project would benefit from cutting it out twice, and using a relatively low-internal-fiber mesh for the tarp. Too many chads to punch out and very time-consuming if one has to punch out all the holes. I don't yet know how strong the mesh would be in use on an actual chair.

On Discouraging Words

"What you have made is not good. Therefore you should not have tried that."

Sometimes people say or imply this kind of thing to me. I have decided not to heed it because experimenting is a valid way to learn something. If I wanted to learn how to work with vinyl tarps, well, there's not a whole lot of instruction books out there. How else did those other authorities get their knowledge but by trial and error? Why can't a person make themself their own authority?

Someone said that you are going to be making a lot of crap before you start making things that are worthwhile. I wish I could remember the source of this quote because it is so very true. The key for me is to get used to that kind of down feeling from an unsuccessful experiment, but not to let it become a source of self-condemnation. Instead, view it as valid experimental results.

Here's a selection of items from my experiment pile. Some worked, some did not. It was all time well spent.

Update: here's one source of the quote: "Often you won't be able to sell what you make -- it's the same with all crafting professions, you have to make a lot of crap before you get to the good stuff." -Patrick Moody.

gluing and cutting experiment

I had some leftover stained-glass effect window vinyl from our last house. For some reason I held onto it. I decided to try gluing it onto some white vinyl tarp and see if it would take to being cut on the vinyl cutter. It did. This is essentially cutting through three layers of vinyl.

Update: well, the two layers didn't adhere well enough so I tried sandpapering the layers prior to gluing. Adhesion was still not that great. I'm not sure what to make of it.