How can I do custom graphics on a blank tee of my own?

One thought on “How can I do custom graphics on a blank tee of my own?”

1. amybeader says:

   June 1, 2010 at 3:45 am

   You have several options. There are textile paints and even markers you can buy at various art stores. Some of them are for quick designs, they work like pens, you just draw on the shirt. Some of these will need to be heat set, be sure to read the instructions.

   You can also actually paint on t-shirts with acrylic paints (I’ve done this). Be aware that the acrylics will be rather thick on the shirt.

   Also, before you do anything with the shirts, you may want to wash them (just following whatever the tags on the shirts say for washing). There’s two reasons for this. One is to remove any excess dye that might come out, and the other is to remove any possible "sizing" that was added to the shirts. Sizing can act as a resist making the paint or dye or whatever that you add to the shirts not stick properly.

   You can also do things like buy a basic silk screening kit and do your own silkscreening.

   There are also fancy fabric paints put out by Jacquard (a textile dye company) if you want to get very artsy with the work. There’s quite a variety, including gorgeous Lumiere paints that have a metallic/shimmery look.

   You can also do designs on the computer with any number of programs (including Photoshop and Illustrator) and buy t-shirt transfers and print out on those then apply them to the shirts. If you do this, remember a couple of things: anything that is white in your design is essentially non-printing so it will be black on the shirt because the black of the shirt itself will show through. And any text must be reversed (the letters/words read backwards) because the transfer will reverse them when you apply it to the shirt.

   Hope that’s enough ideas to play with.

   Good luck and have fun with your project!

Comments are closed.