Paint Rags

Steven Hall from Northland Church in Longwood, FL brings us this these weed block bits with wavy patterns. (originally posted September 2014)

Their paint rags set was built for the 2012 Youth Specialties conference at Northland. Their goal was to create a set that could look great when lit, but disappear when they wanted to rely on their lighting setup. They were really inspired by the similar weed block sets from Cameron Ware and Derek Studt. They wanted something with a bit more texture though, so they decided to use multiple colors of paint. Another goal was to make this set quickly. The method they used, though, was almost completely the opposite of quick.

They used 25’ rolls of black weed block from Home Depot. They used white, grey, and red paint to smear on the weed block with rags. They applied the paint in a curved pattern which also made it easy to apply. This gave the fabric some awesome life and texture. They found that the paint significantly bleed through the weed block, so they used plywood behind the sections they were painting. Also if they allowed the painted weed block to dry on the plywood, it made it impossible to remove. They stretched out the weed block and weighted down the corners with Cinder Blocks.

They painted 15’ sections at a time. In hindsight they should have painted the full 25’ section all at once. They used zip ties to attach the fabric, which ended up being a horrible failure. Steven would suggest wrapping a few feet at the top around a 1x or dowel rod, then using that to attach the drape. Lastly, be prepared to be covered head to toe in paint! They used paint they had left over from other projects and only had to purchase the weed block. Their total cost for this set was $60.