Taylor was curious about using a painting she already had to design a t-shirt. I love that she asked because it’s a question we get from our community a lot, and I’m glad she tested it out to see for herself!
I have to admit that, for a long time, I didn’t love the idea of using pre-existing artwork with PTC because I think it changes the experience quite a bit. Parents will often submit photos of artwork they love that their kids did. This is cool, just different from the experience Ken and I set out to capture. But it shouldn’t really matter how someone experiences it, as long as it means something to them. Right?
Anyway. I like the approach Taylor took. It maintains the ‘engaging design experience’ notion even while using pre-existing artwork rather than just having something printed onto a t-shirt. With that, here’s Taylor’s latest experiment! Let me know what you think!
–Jaimee
A few months ago, I was re-organizing my closet (which is somehow needed more often than it should be). I stumbled upon a painting I did in 2019.
Now, I’m not the best at painting. But I actually like this one!
I love the contrast of the black trees blending into the multi-shade blue sky, with random “stars” speckled throughout it.
Wanting to test out if and how I can use ‘already made’ artwork in a Picture This Clothing design–I got to work.
Here’s what I did:
I printed out a t-shirt template from PictureThisClothing.com
I grabbed my scissors and cut out the shirt so it was hollow (this really tested my scissor precision skills).
Then, I lined the paper up to the painting and took a picture!
My canvas was too big for the template, so I situated it to maintain the important parts and cut off the not-necessary things. Everything on the outside of the gray lines is not printed on the dress/t-shirt, and I was very aware of that in my placement.After I took a photo I was satisfied with, I uploaded the picture to the website and checked my order out!
A short time later, I received my t-shirt.
It is beautiful!
It captures all the colors and blends in my original artwork.
For some reason, when I designed and ordered it, I didn’t pay attention to the texture of the canvas I painted. It just isn’t something that I noticed. But because the artwork is scaled up so much, you can see that the painting was done on a canvas – that texture is more prevalent than I imagined!
Not in a bad way!
I found it interesting that it is so realistic and has so much detail!
I am so happy with how this experiment turned out.
It is truly amazing that you can celebrate previously made artwork in such a creative way. I will definitely be doing this again to continue!
Do you have questions, or is there anything you’d like to see me experiment with? Please leave a comment!
❤️ Taylor
I love this! As an artist myself, I actually did the old iron-on approach for my own art recently for a concert I went to. This really made me think of the pain I went through figuring it out.
This is such a pretty painting by the way, I love the colors!
A few years back I designed a few dresses/shirts using this technique. I think it is fabulous! Now I need to find them and get one (or more) made.
Your painting is great! I might have tried to to capture more of the sky in the shirt; but that's just me....