Painting on Fabric

Dear users, dear creators,
there's plenty of space here for everyone who enjoys painting on fabric, T-shirts, and bags. Have fun with it.

Among the silent readers someone mentioned “Ingo T-shirts.” 

So I asked Ecosia what Ingo T-shirts are. Am I seeing this right—are they actually just regular T-shirts, or did I miss something? Marion wrote in another post that she paints T-shirts for the kids in her daycare. 

What do you use to paint the T-shirts? She painted flamingos on them—that already involves quite a few colors. Who’s already painted T-shirts and would like to show me something? I’ve never tried it myself. 

This is one of my “Ingo T-shirts”—that’s why the quotation marks: our plush flamingo is named Ingo 😁

I’ve just bought the basic colors of fabric paints again. They mix perfectly. I also have special effects additives, like metallic or glitter. You iron the design from the reverse side, and then it’s machine-washable. The kids have all kinds of requests—sometimes it’s Diddle mice, Mickey Mouse, Pokémon, Benjamin Blümchen, or Felix the Rabbit. The weirdest design was dinosaurs biting each other, with blood 🙈
I really enjoy this. And seeing the kids’ wide-eyed excitement.

Ingo = the Flamingo – Oh dear, I’m so inexperienced. Thanks for the explanation.

Of course, I looked it up online right away, and it looks very promising. With a brush, like paint. I thought you’d use markers (like felt-tip pens) to draw.

How do you get the design onto the shirt, or are you just that good at freehand drawing? 

In the age of printers, I no longer have to trace things from somewhere else—I can usually find something suitable among free coloring templates. Back in the day, I used to trace the Diddle mice myself from my daughter’s stationery. I draw the outlines with a black fabric marker, but you have to be careful because T-shirts are stretchy.
I usually mix several colors together until I’m happy with the result. I apply the colors with a brush. I even used to take a cardboard box from a Benjamin Blümchen puzzle from the store to copy—I’d print the image in black and white, and just like that, I’d have an outline copy. I might post some pictures here in the next few days. I photographed some of the motifs.

Thanks for the description. It sounds exciting and really interests me. I’d love to see some pictures. 

I can especially imagine bags. I also have a lot of bedding and old tablecloths—maybe a few smaller designs over the stains, as a centre tablecloth for the patio. I need to get inspired..... 

Good morning,
Most of the images are too large, and I don't know how to reduce their file size.
I'd rather not post pictures of licensed products, so I don't get reported.
Unregistered visitors can read along here too, so publishing images of repainted protected products isn't exactly sensible.
I didn't do it commercially, but still.
Sorry.

Thanks anyway. Your T-shirt with Ingo on it is definitely awesome. 

So, now I’ve taken new photos of the dinosaurs with a smaller file size. 
A kindergarten friend of my son’s asked for the shirt for his birthday party. 
I only painted the motif from a picture book. In the book it was shown too dark to copy. 

🙈 My son is now 26 years old. 

So cute. The things we do for our little ones—or are we really doing it for ourselves?

In any case, your designs are great.

My grandson would love those dinosaurs, too.

I need to do some more research on this, because my grandson loves so many different characters, and if we could put them on a T-shirt, my daughter and I would really earn some brownie points. And I think we’d have a lot of fun doing it, too. 

It’s really rewarding to see how happy the kids get when you do this.
Many years ago, there was a Christmas bazaar where the proceeds were donated to a home for the blind in Bangladesh. I spent a night shift painting Diddl mice on T-shirts. The T-shirts were already sold out before the bazaar even opened.
I always stock up on T-shirts in the Netherlands—at Action and Zeemann. You have to make sure they’re made of cotton. The fabric paints cost at Butt...... About 12 euros. And you can find the template online under “Free Coloring Pages” or something similar. I’ve become more cautious about this and now only do it for my own gifts. I used to take on a lot of commissions and only charged for the cost of materials on a pro-rata basis. Now I just give them away as gifts. 

Thanks for your helpful tips. 

Gladly again 👍