Nature printed T-shirt!
On my last visit to Selby Gardens bought a plain white T-shirt . . . well, it was plain, except for their logo on the front & back! I bought it specifically because I was inspired to do nature printing on all the blank white areas of the T-shirt - you know, gardens and nature printing? That works! I thought it would be a perfect match - and my friend Paula who was with me when I bought the shirt, agreed!
Over the past few years, I’ve taken a number of nature printing classes at Selby Gardens in Sarasota with a wonderful teacher and member of the Nature Printing Society, JoAnn Campisi. We were able to use some garden material from Selby that JoAnn had organized to get for our classes. Lately, she has been uploading her own nature prints daily on Instagram for the 100 Day Project. Seeing her prints definitely inspired me to get my textile paints out and add nature prints to this T-shirt bought some time ago -Thank you for the inspiration, JoAnn!
Click on ANY photo in the Galleries to see a larger picture.
Here’s how I did this - it is really quite simple.
Sponge textile paint on the back of your leaf. Position the leaf on your fabric. Lay a piece of plain white paper over the leaf and either press with your fingers or use a brayer to print your nature image!
I had one thing happen while printing that I had to “recover” from. I had tested out paint colors on a big pad of paper where I work. I printed my T-shirt at the dining room table (covered!) but brought the shirt back to my work area where my heat gun is and used it to dry my prints. Trying to keep the rest of the shirt clean! Well, I forgot there was wet paint from testing colors . . . . .
Oh dear! I finally figured out the best thing to do was to put another leaf print OVER the paint drip - It worked!! It’s not perfect, but it definitely works and I am very happy with my Nature Printed T-Shirt. Can’t wait till Selby gardens is able to be open again, I will wear it with pride!
If you have any questions about Nature printing, please leave me a comment below - scroll down!
“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”