Making a Picture on a T-shirt. Workshop

There are lots of different ways to create unique T-shirts. In this workshop, I will describe the simplest method which even children can use – drawing with markers on cloth (it can be a wonderful handmade present for relatives and frineds).

Materials and Instruments: a cotton T-shirt, cloth markers, silver acrylic contour (am acrylic pencil for making contours).

First, let’s make a sketch. I made it in Adobe Illustrator but it is not necessary at all – you can draw it with a pencil or even use a magazine picture to your liking. The main point here is the following: the image should have clear-cut contours and simple (without multiple tones) colours for you to be able to reproduce it with markers. If the contours of the picture are not very distinct, outline it with a black marker or a gel pen.

If the T-shirt is new, wash it with soap or detergent first toremove the starch which is usually an attribute of new cloth. Then, put thick cardboard into the T-shirt for the paint not to reach the back of it. Onto the cardboard, put the sketch (inside the T-shirt as well).

First, outline the contours with black and than colour the details with different markers. It is important to work carefully as the cloth of the T-shirt is soft and elastic: just making little strokes with the very end of the marker. Otherwise, the cloth with stretch under the marker which can cause a blot.

Markers for cloth are very handy but they have a drawback. The colouring liquid runs along the fibre. That is why, first, the lines turn out to be a bit fuzzy and, second, when two colours meet they can spread. One can cope with the first problem just imagining that it is an artistic effect. To avoid the second problem you can wait until the first colour has dried out and then add the second colour or, to save time, you can put the second colour not very close to the first one leaving some free space between them.

As I worked with the markers for cloth, I discovered all these peculiarities right in the working process. You can see in the picture how the black colour has spread about the red one. I used a silver acrylic contour for cloth to mask the defect. The image only became better – it turned out to be diverse regarding its colour and texture and it also gained an additional accent in composition.

The inscription is contoured in the same way – with careful strokes. You can create your own inscription composing it in any text editing program: choose the appropriate fonts and size and then print it out.

You have just wait until the image has dried up and then you should iron the inner side of it with a not very hot iron to fix the paints.

An author’s T-shirt with cow is ready!

Natalie

Illustration to the Article:

Photos by the author

To read this article in Russian, please, visit here.

Next time we will tell you how to take the “red eye” effect away from the photo…