Thursday, December 1, 2011

Ink blot t-shirt designs Fails and Successes

ink blot design t-shirt that looks like horses with black and turquoise paint
Remember when I thought Sharpie t-shirt designs were the next best thing to sliced bread? Well, at the moment (sorry Sharpies, I'm so finicky that way).

I'm head-over-heels for something else: 

Making my own Ink Blot T-shirt Designs 

You have no idea.


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Ink Blot T-shirt Fail - Before

Ink Blot Oops T-shirt (where i got my mistakes out of the way):

I started with a plain t-shirt (I usually use white, but had this pink one on hand so thought I'd give it a whirl.

I used a piece of cardboard the same width of the shirt, and put it in-between the shirt layers

Next, I folded the cardboard in half and make a strong crease


Put the creased cardboard inside the shirt


Made sure the creased cardboard is in the center of the shirt and secured it (I used some binder clips to keep it secure).



Pulled out my fabric paint. 
Some use acrylic, but I like the softer feel of fabric paint.



Applied my paint. I didn't try to make a design, just dripped, and dropped randomly.

image of a plain t-shirt with black paint spattered on it to make an ink blot design

Carefully folded my shirt in half along the cardboard crease. 


Tada! My first "ink blot" t-shirt. Kind of a fun design.
And this is where it went terribly wrong...

ink blot DIY shirt designed with black fabric paint
 
There were a couple of spots with thick excess paint (if you look closely you'll see). 

I should have left it alone. 

But I don't often leave things alone when I should.

So I pulled out my little sponge to try and soak up some of the paint. 
Wah, wah. Don't do that. 
The more I dabbed, the worse it got and I ended up running to the sink to try and rinse out the paint entirely. 
Do do that either. 
It didn't come out, it just bled. 

See, I'm teaching you how NOT to do things so you can avoid these mistakes! :)


close up of ink blot design mistake smudged paint

Ink Blot T-shirt Fail - After

In the end, as my shirt hung to dry in its sad, blotchy state, my husband said it looked cool that way. Like it was supposed to be like that. I guess I'll believe him even though I know he may just be saying that to be nice. It does sort of have that I-wore-this-in-the-garage-and-got-grease-on-it sort of appeal.



***And by the way, the last "real step" (instead of running to the sink to un-do my design)  - was letting the paint dry with the cardboard still in tact. 

After it was dry, I removed the cardboard and used a dry hot iron (with a cloth on top of the design) to set the paint for about 3 minutes. 
It's best not to wash your shirt for at least 72 hours.



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Ink Blot T-shirt Success - Before & After


Now that I had that mistake under my belt, I thought I'd give it another try. It worked SO much better.

Ink Blot T-shirt Success - Before

This time I used a plain white cotton shirt


And I decided to try 2 different colors together - black and light blue


I let my creative hands fly - Drip, drop, splat

ink blot t-shirt DIY design "before" shows black and light blue random paint splatters

Folded the shirt over and tada!

Ink Blot T-shirt Success - After

Woah! I loved it! It looks like a horse or angry bull. Not sure which. What do you see?

DIY ink blot design close up on a t-shirt that looks like a horse

I decided to heat-set the design with a dry iron for about 3 minutes, after the design dried by putting a  cloth between the iron and paint. I just used a scrap of muslin.



I'm still obsessed with this ink blot design. I couldn't have planned it if I tried. 
And honestly, that's the crazy/intriguing/exciting part of ink blot design. 

You never really know what you're going to get. It's a roll of the dice, baby. And that's what makes it so addictive. 

Trust me, I warned my husband to hide all of his shirts.


painted shirt that looks like a horse or bull made by ink blot method


Ink blot t-shirt design After - Success - looks like horses


👉 Are you ready to turn a plain t-shirt into something completely unique?  
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