For those, who is producing lots of flags on 2 sticks this article won't be very useful, but for those, who is going to draw something for the first time this information should be interesting....

Lots of flags on stands is realy amazing, but to stand out of the pack you need to imagine something unusual and the quality of your flag plays also a very important role. There is a great number of methods to make a flag: to use acryl paint, to use aerosol paint can, to make application or finally just to pay for the printing of the flag. But it goes without saying, that the flag made by your own will be much more valuable to you than the printed one.

Step 1. Find idea. As well as any book, film, play, picture etc. the flag begins from an idea in your head. The topic should be unique, don't try just to copy something you've seen on photos, it is not interesting. I've spent about 3 month since i've bought sticks and cloth before i imagined what to draw.

Step 2. Cloth and sticks. To prepare the cloth for drawing you need to chose the right kind of material and it depends on its characteristics. I've chosen the cloth, that is called ORTON-10, but I don't think that this name will say something to you... It looks like jeans, it is realy strong and quite glance. As a result I've got a square with height 140 cm and width 80 cm. not very big, but quite enough... Sticks for the flag should be plastic because I don't think that cops will allow you to use metal ones The best idea is to use the water pipe, it is possible to find them in supermarkets and they are quite cheap. The pipe should be at least 2 metres long.

Step 3. Preparing a sketch. I prefer to prepare the sketch using computer. At first take photo with the high resolution (1). Than you can edit it with the help of Adobe Photoshop. With the help of Cutout filter you'll get the image with only 6-8 colours (2). Than I've imported the image into CorelDraw and edited it there. It is much more faster and the quality is better. You need just to draw polylines on dark areas of the photo (3). To draw the imagined part of the image is not very hard (4). Finally you need to devide the image into parts so it would be possible to print them on paper. For this image i needed 27 pieces of A4 paper.



Step 4. Transfering on cloth. The best way to transfer the image on cloth is to use he thick pencil. It is much more better than the common one. It is important to pull up the cloth. Small details I've drawn with the help of black permanent marker. Before this I've tested my marker under the water and realised, that rain would not damage the image on flag. So 2 figures on image were made with marker.




Step 5. Painting. At first you should stick down white areas with the help of sealing tape. Than using knife cut out areas that should be painted. This process is quite long and boring so ask your friends for help. Divide the whole square into 2 or 3 parts. Paint first part and only than stick down the next one. To paint the flag I've used aerosol paint cans (usually they are used for graffities). It seems that it is the cheapest way to paint the flag. I think it is obvious that at first you should use bright colours and than dark ones. Do everything carefully, accurately and don't press on cup a lot. The cloth gets dry realy fast but the sealing tape might be wet so try not to dirty the cloth, wait for some minutes and only than remove the sealing tape.




Step 6. Acryl paint. Finally I've used little bottle with acryl or something like that to cover small blue areas on flag. It is quite stinking and smells like petrol. You should have a brush to use this paint. But ofcourse it is not important to use acryl, you can do everything using markers and aerosol paint.



So look what I've finally made:



Thanks a lot to Dexter, www.ultras.org.ua