University of Houston Wall Art

On 12-31-2015 the University of Houston won the Peach Bowl. It was the first time in several decades that UH had made it to a bowl game needless to say this was an exciting day for The University of Houston. My wife and I both graduated from UH and never had any UH memrabillia to speak of besides our degrees which we hang proudly in our home office. To commemorate the occasion I decided to make this UH logo which will hang in our game room.

Here is the video link for those that want to watch the build process.

I started by enlarging the UH logo and printing it on 9 sheets of paper which I taped together to form the template. I used my light box to make sure I lined up all the pages correctly. If you don't have a light box you can always use a window on a sunny day as the light box. It is a little awkward to hold up sheets of paper to a window and tape them together but it can be done. Just start off by taping the first sheet to the window and then add on the rest of the sheets as you compile the piece.

Next I cut out the paper template and traced it on to a piece of MDF that measures 22 x 22 inches. I made sure to tape down the template so that when I trace it, it doesn't move.

To prepare for cutting out the logo I predrill a few holes to make room for the jigsaw blade. As I go along and make the cuts I also predrill in different locations to make getting to certain spots easier. You could just start cutting from the outside edge and make your way towards an outside line. But I find it easier to predrill holes closer to the lines I'm going to cut as well as any corners I feel this saves some time. Also remember when cutting MDF always wear a face mask or respirator since MDF creates a lot of dust.

Here I used my belt/disk sander to smooth out my cuts I mostly used the belt sander where ever I could. For the hard to reach spots, like the inside corners and tighter areas, I used an oscillating multi-tool that has a triangular sanding attachment. I had actually forgotten I had bought this tool. Originally I had purchased this for another project which required an offset cutting head. But I was very pleased with how well it worked out and even happier that I was able to use it again on a different project. This sanding could be done by hand with a palm sander or a scrap piece of wood wrapped with sandpaper that would act as a sanding block but that would take a while longer and a lot more elbow grease.

Here is the piece after sanding. I also sanded the entire surface with 220 grit.

Its somewhat hard to make out in this picture but I primed the MDF with white spray paint.

Once the primer was dry. I sprayed the entire piece with red spray paint and let it dry per the instructions on the can.

Next I masked off the red area and left a 1/2 inch gap all around the perimeter and inside, as required per the design of the logo, this would give me my white outline.

Then I sprayed the piece with white spray paint. I used several coats to make sure that none of the red showed through. and let the piece dry. Once it was dry I removed all the masking.

This was the end result. There were a few small areas where the white paint leaked through ever so slightly but I was very please with the overall result. I decided to make this project kind of on a whim with out a lot of preplanning I just went for it. The cool part was how excited my wife was when she saw it, she really liked it which melt away any insecurities I had about the project. I hope you enjoyed this instructable and hopefully this will motivate you or inspire you to create your own piece of wall art. You don't have to make a University of Houston logo hopefully you can use the techniques I show here to make your own piece of wall art.