Paint By Number

This is what I know: artists often aren't able to carry a project through from conception to production. I know this because I've worked with desginers. But I'm cool as a cucumber when there is a crisis and I am good at improvising, coming up with alternate ways to get the job done. And when I work with someone who doesn't freak out when things go wrong, we do good work together.

I spent the last few days making soccer banners. The artist had come up with a beautiful design and colour choices. But the execution of the banners is a nightmare. Having painted them all brillant colours, we found the stencilling method the artist provided for doesn't work. The stencil simply isn't stiff enough. It curls up at all the wrong places. We were supposed to spray glue on the stencil and adhere it to the painted banner so we can spray in the soccer player and ball. But the glue doesn't hold, and white sticky blotches smear on the painted surface. The paint given to us to spray with? It runs.

As if the process wasn't manual enough, we now trace the soccer player and ball onto the painted surface with a marker, then we colour in the figures with a brush. There are 38 banners to do. We haven't figure out how to do the lettering yet. But I suspect we will use a permanent marker on top of the acrylic paint and just write in the festival name and date. The festival starts next Friday. It would have been better if we had the banners done and up already, but as it is, we are more than half way there with the production.

Still, the banners look amazing, from afar. But I marvel at why the artist thought his process would work.