Decoration One of the challenges of kite building is to make something which is visually highly appealing. Some kites, in particular cellular kites, are made out of a number of separate pieces stitched together, and so these lend themselves to a carefull choice of colour scheme. Simpler kites can also be made using a patchwork technique for a similar effect, but if you're after putting pictures, motifs or lettering on your kite, you have to use other methods. Painting kites is popular in some circles, and has been used for many years in the East to decorate traditional kites made with natural materials such as cotton or paper. Tyvek takes acryllic paints successfully, but ripstop nylon and polyester are harder.
Colours are less vivid than with some other methods, but a striking result can still be obtained.
Much more successful are spray paints as used for colouring artificial flowers, but the downside is that these are normally based on toluene or xylene, which are highly toxic and can easily kill you even before you realise you've got a problem. Worse still, they are cumulative, which means that what you got away with yesterday could kill you tomorrow. Nevertheless, stunning colours are achievable with this method. Here are some experiences of painting on ripstop from an expert in the field. Others have successfully used dyeing on ripstop .