There are numerous techniques for adding a great design to your T-shirt. Paint, dye, color spray or print to make your own innovative textile creations. But, I think that the most adorable and exclusive T-shirts are the ones painted.

So, today I invited artist and illustrator Maryanne Oliver, to write a guest post, an useful guide that will help you to prepare the T-shirt, to choose the correct fabric paint and provide guides and tips to create for yourself the perfect hand painted T-shirt.

Prepare yourself, get your paints and pens ready! It’s time to create something beautiful for you to wear!

In this photo, artist Maryanne Oliver and her amazing illustrations.

* STEP 1 * Choose the materials you’ll need *

• T-Shirt - 100% cotton will get fabulous results, avoid lycra based fabrics for painting.
• Fabric Paints - Invest in a high quality fabric paint. It will make a huge difference. I use Pebeo
• Fabric Pens - I use “Y & C FabricMate” pens
• Thick piece of cardboard
• Paint brushes
• Hair Dryer
• Iron
• Paper Towels
• Piece of scrap fabric - for ironing

* STEP 2 * Prepare your materials and find some inspiration *

Place your shirt on a nice flat surface, with the cardboard placed inside the shirt to allow you to paint on (without paint going through to other side). Select your colors you wish to paint with. I have used black only on this shirt, not only to keep the process simple, but it looks stunning also! Pick out a picture you wish you use or your design for your shirt. It can be a fashion photo from a magazine, a picture, something that you like.

* STEP 3 * Outline a rough sketch on the T-shirt

It’s time to draw a rough sketch of your design or idea on to the shirt, either with a fabric pencil or a lead pencil is fine as you will be painting over it anyway.  Do not be too precious, its just a rough sketch. Pour paints on to your palette ready to go, make sure you water the paint down as much as possible as the lighter the paint the easier it will be to work with and you can always build the tone up as you go along. But it’s better to start light.

Remember don’t be afraid of making mistakes! There are no mistakes in art! You can always cover it up or work around it, so removing that fear from the start will make the process so much more enjoyable and easier!

* STEP 4 * Start to paint the tones and shadows to your sketch *

The most important thing is to not worry about paint spilling during this process. Have your paper towels ready on hand, and if you really are not happy with the paint running then just blotch it hard with paper towels and you will find that will absorb the paint.

Fabric paints watered down will bleed on fabric also, so try to make this work with your design and like I mentioned earlier use the paint lightly. So in small amounts at a time. Use light paint strokes when you are getting started and especially when working on detail on the face. You can load up on paint when you paint the tones and shadows and hair etc. Use light free brush strokes as you paint. Remember what I said about relaxing, this is the key to beautiful brush strokes that flow freely, trust yourself and what you are doing.

* STEP 5 * Dry your painting. Take care of the shadings!

The good thing about a really nice thick piece of cardboard inside the shirt, means you can load up on water and paint as you feel needed. If it gets too wet just dry off with a hairdryer, this is fantastic when you are doing the detail on the face etc, In this way you can take care of your shading, then dry it off and finish the final details without having to wait around or any running of paint.

* STEP 6 * Fix the latest details. Iron the T-shirt.

Your shirt should be starting to look pretty impressive by now! Once all the paint has been dried off you can start to do the final details with your fabric pens. The eyes, nose, detail on the mouth, outer lining and also smaller finishing touches to the hair. Once you have completed all the detail, dry off completely or allow to dry naturally.

After the T-shirt is dried, place your piece of cotton fabric over the top and iron press the shirt to allow the paint to seal further. Once the paint has sealed allow your shirt to sit over night, then iron again the next day.  I always like to hand wash the shirt the next day once all the paint is sealed, and allow shirt to drip dry in the shade. Once dry iron yet again, and your beautiful piece of art will be ready to wear!

Congratulations!

Your shirt is complete and by this time you should feel pretty impressed with yourself. Enjoy!

All photos are copyright Maryanne Oliver

So, dear friend, if you want to try it for yourself, the entire process of painting will take you almost two hours and one day for drying. Then you can wear the beautiful piece.

Thank you my dear Maryanne for your inspiring post! For more fabulous and inspiring artwork of artist Maryanne Oliver check out her website.

Article edited by Iulia Stanescu