Well, after a long love affair with photo-emulsion silkscreening, I have realized that if I really and truly want to make t-shirts and make a lot of them, that method just isn't feasible. It may look super professional, but it's extremely time consuming, especially for someone like me who has low motivation for it and usually employs her father to help so when I find time to ask for it, the whole thing ends up taking about a week. Not good. Plus I wait forever between doing screens (again, the process wears me down), so my emulsion gets wasted as it only lasts so long...
But then I come to Craftster and hear about the wonder that is freezer paper! I had a blank t-shirt lying around for a silkscreen I never got around to doing, so as soon as I heard about freezer paper I basically could not wait to try it out, and ran out to get some so I could make my first design.
Now, most people would probably start simple, or at least somewhat simple (say, one color, moderate cutting, no islands) but I was just so impatient that I simply could NOT go that route! For me, 3 layers and many, many islands was all that would do. I know, seeing as this was my first stencil I went a bit crazy. >_< That's just how I roll.
Anyway, here is the result!
As you can see, I made some accidental smudges...oops! I actually think the one at the bottom kind of gives it a nice effect, actually...lol!
I'm essentially obsessed with Noel Fielding from the Mighty Boosh, so I HAD to make a shirt of him. I found this photo from the BBC:
Turned it into this with Paint Shop Pro:
And then separated it into my 3 colors, white, grey, and black, respectively:
Now, something I did differently from most tutorials I've read was instead of cutting out first and then ironing, I figured it would be much easier due to the amount of islands I had to iron first and then cut out. I knew there would be a risk of damaging the fabric, but I made sure I had a really sharp X-acto and pressed down very carefully, and it worked beautifully! The freezer paper still came up at times, but after the first layer of paint the knife made slight cuts in the paint and I was able to use those as a guide to repositioning and I just ironed it again. I really wanted to use my silkscreen to apply the paint for a thin, even coat, but the holes in the fabric I had were too small so the paint didn't come through and I had to paint it by hand. Next time though, I'm buying new fabric so I can silkscreen it! I think it will come out a lot better. This one is much too thick, and I'm afraid it's going to crack big time when I wash it. Oh well!
Anyway, this was super fun and I'm so so proud of the results. Thanks for looking, everyone!
