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Graeme Dunstan was asked to paint a banner to promote Songkane Peemai (Lao New Year) Celebration at Wat Buddhalavarn, Wedderburn, NSW Australia.
He designed a banner 4 meters wide by 1.8 meters deep using Adobe Illustrator 8.0. The design is above. The line drawing of Punyin was suggested to Graeme by Kevin Prakoohheang and scanned from an early Wat Buddhalavarn publication.
After the design was approved, Graeme removed the colours and printed it as a black and white line with a 10 mm square grid superimposed. This gave him 1:10 scale drawing from which to work.
Drawing up a 100 mm grid on the cloth (bleached calico) the lettering outlines and the Punyin line drawing transferred was transferred to the cloth using steel ruler and B pencil. A soft eraser is an essential tool in this process.
The inline of the letter outlines was then masked with masking tape. This process requires a light touch, cutting trimming masking tape with a snap blade knife pressing hard enough to cut the tape but not so hard as to cut the cloth under it.
This is laborious but it allows easy and quick painting to straight edges and results in a white (clear cloth) outline around the letters when the masking tape is removed.
The paint used was Permaset silk screening ink. The nice property of these water based inks is that colours are bright and translucent. They can be diluted and applied like water colours, layering to create effects. When light is behind the banner the colours glow.
To prevent bleeding of inks under the masking tape, reducer was mixed in and dry newspaper was put under the cloth to absorb any excess ink.
When the painting was done inks were fixed using a hot iron. The cloth was then hemmed with polycotton in various bright colours and sleeves were attached to top and bottom so that it could be rigged on a bamboo frame.
The frame was made up of bamboo in 4.2 metre lengths, 50-75 mm in diameter and joined with 5/8" dowell and bound with rubber strips cut from car tyre inner tubes. Cantilevers of 5/8" dowell 600 mm long through holes in the upright poles at 2 metere centres allowed the mounting of side flags. The frame was erected tied to two 2 m steel stakes (star picketts) with rubber strips and secured with guy ropes to pegs in the ground.
The banner was designed for use in future years. The date of the celebration changes each year so it as painted with acrylic on a separate plywood strip to hang under the cloth banner, repainting dates being easier in plywood.
Painting the Punyin image was the biggest challenge. Graeme does not consider himself a good figure painter. When it became apparent that no one else would do it, he prayed for help and guidance before the Kwan Yin image on the Shrine Hall veranda, kneeling and burning incense.
Looking up Graeme noticed that there were cobwebs and bird droppings on Kwan Yin's face. With a tissue he carefully and lovingly cleaned her up. She must have been grateful for when Graeme returned to his work table his hand was sure and quickly drew the image outline using a black Texta pen.
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