@bob, yes, I do agree, and that’s an issue when you’re performing an edit. But that was not the question here. All I said was that those alternatives were grammatically correct. Sentences do not have to have the same meaning in order to be equally grammatical.
As for “tarp” versus “the tarp,” the difference is whether you are treating “tarp” as a countable noun or not. If you regard it as an uncountable noun, an aggregate or collective term such as “wood” or “plaster,” then the article is unnecessary. But I don’t perceive a tarpaulin as being of that class. I believe it is referring to a single object, one that we would normally designate with an article.
Perhaps in the trade, though, where tarps are laid down before applying plaster or paint, it is not spoken of that way, just as in a medical office we hear “Doctor will see you now.” In that case, again agreeing with bob, context matters: is the audience a general readership expecting to see standard English, or are we just talking to the other painter guys? If the latter, I wouldn’t worry too much about grammatical perfection.