Making a Ground Cloth

Items needed to start the project

Latex out door paint Barn Red in color –
The amount of paint needed will depend on the amount of work you will be doing. In most cases half of a gallon will be enough for the average ground cloth. DO NOT USE GLOSS PAINT!

1 to 2 tubes of DAP water soluble calk –
The calk will make the ground cloth very pliable. It does not matter if you use clear or white calk, however white calk will lighten the color of your paint.

1 Roller brush

1 gallon size plastic bucket

1 Roller paint brush rolling tray

Light weight Duck weight canvas cloth –
The amount of cloth will depend on how big you are going to make your ground cloth.

After sewing the ground cloth to the desired size sew pieces of canvas tape (About ½ an inch wide and 4 to 6 inches long at each corner) the tape will be used to tie your cloth into different configurations.

Next prep your paint in the following manner. Take the DAP calk and place it into the plastic bucket then add a small amount of warm to hot water into the bucket with the calk and mix until the calk is fully dissolved.

Place your ground cloth on a hard flat surface such as your drive way and with the roller brush paint one side of your ground cloth; after it has fully dried paint the reverse side. After the second side has fully dried check for small pin size spots that have missed being painted and then paint said spots.

Tip-
It will be very important that you only place one coat of paint on each side of your cloth as this will keep the cloths weight down. It may sound silly, but if you start doing a lot of campaign type events or get to the point that you walk into an event only with what you carry on your back you will learn to love a light weight ground cloth.

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