Making a Great Poster (with glitter!!)

Most projects will need to make a poster for their event! Posters can hang in the Cafeteria to advertise the event, or can be used to label stations at the event. One example is the Tailgate, part of Spirit Week. Usually, a big sign is made for the Cafeteria to promote the Tailgate, but then little signs are made to label each booth at the Tailgate.

How to make a good poster:

1. Get a large sheet of paper from one of the rolls in the Library. Its better to overestimate, cut more paper than you need, and then trim it later.

2. Get the paint, paintbrushes, and glitter that you need.

   1. Use the square foam paintbrushes. Always. These brushes are far superior for sign making because they make strokes that don't vary in width. This way, your letters will remain uniform and look much nicer.

3. Sketch out your letters. You don't need to draw out block letters, you can just do a single pencil line, but make sure you have space for all your letters. Keep in mind that the pencil line is much thinner than the paintbrush, so keep consistent space in between each letter.

   1. Don't try to center your sketch on the paper. Start on the left, take the space that you need, and then trim the sheet at the end to center it. Often people sketch out a word in the center, but then it takes more space than they thought, and then the right end is squished.

4. Paint

   1. Turn the paintbrush as you paint. The flat edge of the brush should always be perpendicular to the direction of the path. For example, if you're painting an "L," hold the brush horizontal on the way down, and then turn so the brush edge is vertical for the bottom line. If you're painting a "C," turn the brush continuously as you move through the letter. This will keep your letters at a consistent width, the width of your paintbrush.

   2. As your brush starts to run out of paint, finish your brushstroke! If you're painting a "C" and you start to run out of paint halfway, still complete the letter. If you stop halfway, you'll have uneven collections of paint throughout the letter. Instead, finish the letter, get more paint on your brush, and continue from a little before where you started to lose paint.

   3. You should never be holding the brush straight up and down. This just puts globs of paint on the paper, and will make your letters clumpy and uneven. Hold the brush diagonal to the paper, at about 45 degrees.

5. Add glitter

   1. Shake glitter over all the wet paint. You may want to add glitter as you go, especially for longer words.

   2. Start on one end, and then lift up the edges of the paper to make any excess glitter fall onto the next letter. Continue this until you reach the end, adding glitter as you run out.

   3. When you have glitter on all the letters, lift the edges of the poster and tilt it up to shake excess off. It's easiest to collect the glitter on a paper plate. Then, you can fold the paper plate and funnel the glitter back into its jar.

6. Clean up - Make sure you save time for this!

   1. wipe any paint off the floor

   2. sweep glitter up (find a dustpan)

   3. throw away paper scraps

   4. clean brushes

      1. rinse in sink

      2. put soap on your hand, scrub the brush in the soap on your hand

      3. blot brush dry with paper towels

      4. put brushes back in bin

7. Tape the poster up to dry. Use blue tape so that it won't tear the paper when you take it down. Taping to the lockers works well.