Thinking about getting ahead start for my boy's Book Week parade, as has already been decided that he wanted to go as Super Hero, I had plans to make the entire outfit and started to work hard on the top and shield - only to find out there was not going to be a parade. After the inevidable sadness I thought I should go ahead and make the t-shit part of the outfit anyway so that it could be worn as a normal t-shirt, so I started to do it - armed with no more that a standard kitchen sponge, a washed styrofoam tray that you get with sausages or mince, a slice of cardboard and stardard acrylic paints (just happen to have scarlet lake red and titaniuum white) and a roll of masking tape.The blue t-shirt was stolen from his bedroom draw.
Unfortunatlely I didn't take 'progress' pictures of this one as it was worked on a bit here and a bit there, so it took me something like 6 weeks to complete, but realistically a few hours over a few days.
After cutting out the internal size of the shirt out of cardboard and placing that inside the shirt to present paint leaking through to the other side, that 50mm wide paper masking tape, I marked out the sections that needed to be painted, more or less all by eye. I wanted to make the front middle section of the strips to tilt upward and wanted the waist band to go all the way around the shirt. I decided to mark out for the white first (purely and simply becuase I had to do the star also) - so much like masking off a car for spray painting I had all the 'to be white' sections exposed.
Squirting the paint into the tray and dapping one corner of the kitchen sponge into it, I simply started to 'dab' the paint onto the fabric until it looked evenly covered. This technique worked really well for me as I was going for a distressed look (as in having too many battles), so the non-completly covered paint showed some of the blue shirt seeping through. I continued 'dabbing' until all the white sections were completed on one side and then just hung the shirt up to dry until the next day.
ON the next day I simply turned the shirt over and did the excact same thing to that side.
When the paint was all dry of both sides, I them proceeded to pull the tape off and re mask for the red sections to be painted - and yep, repeated the whole process again.
So after the paint was all dry and all the masking tape removed, the cardboard was well and truly stuck to the fabric so I had to more of less pull the shirt off the board, leaving some board attached to the shirt.
Since I did not use any meduim with the pain to make it more flexible, it was very stiff and did not give at all - so I soaked it in a mixture of warm water and some white vinegar for a day or so to help loosen the stuck cardboard and try to help make the pain not 'tear' the fabric when it came to streching it; which was done whenever I remebered to help make the shirt more use freindly (and when I menat streching I mean really pulling and tugging on it like you are trying to make a hot wahsed wollen jumper bigger
After finally running it through a decent one hour wash withi a good detergent and fabric softer, followed up by a day in the sun on the line, I now cannot get the shirt off my boy. Dont get me woring, as first he hated it as it just did not streach at all, but now and after a few wears and more washes, it just gets softer and more enjoyable to wear.
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