Monday, April 07, 2008

Designs

As I get closer to being ready to skin my daughter's kayak, I've been thinking about how the kayak should be decorated. The PVC fabric used to skin the kayak is available in several bright colours, and she picked red for her kayak. When purchasing the fabric, I also purchased some extra yellow PVC and Denham Awning Makers threw in some blue scraps for me to use.

My daughter saw, and loved, the sun that Anton Olsen used on the Yost-designed Sea Pup kayak he built. So of course, a bright yellow sun on her kayak is exactly what she wants. As good as Anton's kayak looks, I'm inclined to try something else rather than to copy his.

I was thinking perhaps an orca would be a good pick, and I'm pretty sure my daughter would agree. I found the following graphic via a google image search and it seems to be a pretty close fit to what I was looking for.
Plus, according to the info in the readme file at the index for the graphic, it's free and available to use. I used Microsoft Paint to change the colours to match what I want to use and came up with the following colourful version.

The tail looks a little odd to me, so I'll maybe fix that a bit and reduce the angular look of the whale overall before using it. To actually use this, I would cut the whole whale shape out of blue, then cut out the yellow patches and glue that over top of the blue, all of which will be glued onto the red fabric on the kayak deck. I will either use a black marker or a bit of black scrap from Mark for the eye.

3 comments:

  1. Hey Bryan this boat looks awsome. I would like to try this myself but i can't seem to find out where to by the pvc fabric. If you could would you please email me and let me know more info aboout the fabric and where to buy it. thanks matt
    my email is parkimc@auburn.edu

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  2. Hi Bryan, Sean from Winnipeg (& the builders' forum) here. Great to see pictures of the girls' boat. I suppose the wrinkles are more difficult to work out on a shorter boat as the keel may be more curved.

    I checked your bio - do you ever make it here for the Winnipeg Folk Festival? If so, why not PM me with the email address at the builders' forum and we can meet for a beer.

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  3. Hi Sean,
    I do head to Winnipeg every once in a while, and I do attend occasional folk festivals, but have never been to the Winnipeg Folk Festival. One of these years we will. I'd like to meet up with you sometime when I'm in town. There's also Ken there too.
    Cheers,
    Bryan

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