Easy T-Shirt Sketching
Using a bleach pen you can create a rad shirt in about 15 minutes!
Supplies!
You will require:
A t-shirt or other cloth material
A bleach pen
A magazine/cardboard/plastic bag
A water source
A t-shirt or other cloth material
A bleach pen
A magazine/cardboard/plastic bag
A water source
Insert Protective Lining
Insert your magazine/cardboard/plastic bag inside of the shirt. Smooth the shirt down if you want a flat drawing surface. Wrinkle it up if you want to try some funky effects!
Draw!
Shake and squirt a little bit of bleach onto a scrap piece of paper to test for consistency. This will help you get the hang of drawing with the pen before trying it out on your fabric. Check to see how thick your lines are.
Draw! I just freestyled a griffin head, but you can use chalk to lay down a pattern first for more control. Anything you draw on the shirt will leech a little bit and your lines will be about twice as thick as what you draw.
Watch your fabric. It begins to whiten almost right away. I let this one sit for about ten minutes before moving on to the next step.
If you plan on drawing a big pattern plan to do it in batches. Draw, move onto the next step, and come back to draw some more later. Otherwise parts of your lines will not have the same lightness. You can always come back and do more, but you can't undo anything once it is done.
Draw! I just freestyled a griffin head, but you can use chalk to lay down a pattern first for more control. Anything you draw on the shirt will leech a little bit and your lines will be about twice as thick as what you draw.
Watch your fabric. It begins to whiten almost right away. I let this one sit for about ten minutes before moving on to the next step.
If you plan on drawing a big pattern plan to do it in batches. Draw, move onto the next step, and come back to draw some more later. Otherwise parts of your lines will not have the same lightness. You can always come back and do more, but you can't undo anything once it is done.
Wash
Carefully remove the paper/cardboard/plastic lining from inside the shirt and quickly place your garment under running water. The bleach will be kind of thick so you need to scrub a bit to get it all off quickly. Gloves are a good idea here.
Wring out the shirt and rinse again to make sure all the bleach is gone.
Wring out the shirt and rinse again to make sure all the bleach is gone.
Let Dry
Flop your shirt over a bar or put it in the dryer. Then you are ready to wear it!
Since I didn't leave my bleach on for a super long time my lines are a light brown. If I want to make them lighter I can retrace the linework and bleach again. I can also keep adding onto the image again whenever I want or have friends draw on it.
Adding embroidery, buttons, and appliques could be really fun accents to add after the shirt is done drying. Using this technique, which I think looks like reversed batik, you could make some really awesome fabrics to sew with, or curtains, etc.
Since I didn't leave my bleach on for a super long time my lines are a light brown. If I want to make them lighter I can retrace the linework and bleach again. I can also keep adding onto the image again whenever I want or have friends draw on it.
Adding embroidery, buttons, and appliques could be really fun accents to add after the shirt is done drying. Using this technique, which I think looks like reversed batik, you could make some really awesome fabrics to sew with, or curtains, etc.