Field Stencils & Field Logo Art

[Cola]

I started painting my high school's logo in the center of the football field my freshman year and have been doing it for about 8 years now. Since then I have picked up another school.

Basically, I have been doing it totally by freehand. The first few years was strictly freehand until I got smart and started using small rope to "layout" each line, then I would paint over it lightly and then when done go over it with more layers of paint. This has worked well for me and I have got plenty of compliments, but I want to step up the game.

I would like to make my own stencil to use for these purposes and was wondering if anyone knew of an easy way or could offer ANY advice or help on accomplishing this task.

I finally learned how to use Illustrator and am able to vectorize lots of high school logos that are only in small or decent raster images. If I could make stencils I was thinking I could open up my business a little and do some more local schools around my area.

Here is the work I have done freehand. It's supposed to be 'W' & 'E' interlocking diagonally with Monotype Corsiva as the font:

Any help would be greatly appreciated and if anyone has done similar work, share your stories and how you do this. I wish there was more interest in this and an online community somewhere. All I can find are people wanting to sell stencils and they aren't giving me any good info.

Thanks a lot.

[Cola]

By the way, what I am looking to do is create the stencil with a sturdy material that would last over time and wouldn't move around a lot when placed on the ground- maybe it could be staked down?

Also, they would need to be anywhere from 40 to 50 feet wide and tall so I am sure I would need to do it in pieces unless someone knows better.

[RamblinGamblinTiger]

I have no clue on what type of material to use- Maybe a couple heavy duty tarps?

As far as the logo goes, I would suggest drawing it out on a sheet of graph paper, and then create a much larger grid on whatever material you are using and enlarge it block by block while copying it onto the material.

Hope that makes sense.... I've never painted an actual field, but I've messed around enlarging stuff and trying to make a paint stencial out of it...

Good luck

[buffalofan2106]

I'm just throwing ideas out and I'm not claiming to have any knowledge on this subject but this idea may work...

You will have to do it in pieces, a wood stencil would be the sturdiest material. One way to do it is to put a piece of wood against a wall, as if it were the wall. Get an overhead projector and print out your logos, words, etc on a transparency and use the overhead projector to enlarge them on the wood. Project the images on the wood and trace them. Then use a jigsaw or circular saw and cut them out. There are your stencils. Depending on how big they are, this may take a few pieces of wood. You can either then use hinges to put the stencil together when it lays flat or just set it down in place seperately.

I don't think this idea would work for the interlocking W and E, but for an actual logo, they could work well, if you did it right.

But again, this might be too expensive and time consuming, and I am really just throwing out an idea and not sure if it is feasible.

[Cola]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I have done the grid suggestion before in attempt to freehand it those first few years, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to replicate each square of the grid onto a larger piece so it wouldn't be as difficult to draw out all at once.

As far as the wood goes, I think it may be TOO sturdy and clumsy for carrying out onto the field to use. It would have to be thin also, which makes me afraid of breaking. I read somewhere online about Polytough or Poly-something fabric and staking it down. Not sure about where to get that.

Your idea about the projecter is a very good one, I may try that. Accuracy wouldn't be as high because you'd be moving pieces around and each projection onto the board might not be equal but I think doing it that way has some potential.

I also think it would still work with the letters, you would just have two different stencils- one for the 'W', one for the 'E' and do them seperately. It's a thought...

Anyone else know of ideas or have experience doing it professionally...or like I do?

[VitaminD]

Have you tried contacting anyone in the NFL or at a local D-1 college? From what I've seen most stencils are either plywood or a thin fiberglass, but I couldn't begin to tell you how to prepare them. Maybe you know someone who's handy with a jigsaw?

[Cola]

...bump

[jayhawk]

I'm a coach for a local flag football team and the field painter as well. Each year we have a national tournament and paint two fields with the nfl logo and end zone wording. The best way we came up with is to go to the home depot and buy the heaviest drop cloth they have. Then we rented a wall projector and layed against a wall and traced the patern and then cut it out. We did for each color in the logo or word. over the years the tarp has absord more and more paint which made it eisier to lay on the field...just don't paint on a windy day