Step One: Daydreaming of Creatures

A big shipment of new shirts arrived, and I said, "Aha! I can do blog posts about my process!"  The shirts will eventually end up here on Etsy, but it will take a while.  I have found that the shirts are nicer if I paint them first, and then dye them, because that way I can let the design go whatever direction it wants to, and pick out the best shirt color to match the finished design.  And it doesn't make much sense to dye one shirt at a time.  So they will be finished in batches.  



The first step is the most complicated for me- dreaming up new creatures to paint.   I like to paint shirts for my son first, to see how they look, and his interests have always been my biggest source of inspiration.  His big passion right now is Legos, so naturally he wants me to  paint them on his shirts, but I have to leave anything with lots of straight lines up to his father!  I like to start with a drawing with some flowing lines.  I draw right on the shirts with pencil, because the lines will either be painted over completely or washed off.  So here's an initial sketch.  It's a trilobite!  If you are thinking, "Of course! Every child should have a trilobite shirt!", I beg to differ.  If that were the case, the children wearing trilobite shirts would be denied the joy of hearing, "OH MY GOSH! What the heck is that?!?", a reaction a real trilobite would certainly deserve.