Painted Clothes (dragon hoodie and Pete the Cat shirt)

These are the painted clothes that I made for Kate and Andy for Christmas.   I'd read on the Gelli Arts Blog about how you can iron freezer paper to fabric to stabilize it for painting, and thought, "I must try this!" It didn't take long to come up with the perfect project. Kate has a really cute style of dragons that she draws, and she wears a hoodie almost every day at school, so I decided to put a dragon on a hoodie for her.

I already had some Golden brand textile medium to mix with my acrylic paints, and I got a blank purple hoodie from JiffyShirts.com.  I roughed out the basic shape in chalk first, but I was still a little nervous about that moment of committing paint to fabric.  Once I got started, though, it all flowed out just fine.  I like the way the dark background works as shading for the scales. 



I put the hoodie over the back of a chair so I could get at both sides. (This worked really well.) Cory helped.



My other assistant.



Completed hoodie, front and back.



I managed to do all of this without Kate seeing, so it was a complete surprise!



I also made a Pete the Cat shirt for Andy. I got a picture of the ironing of the freezer paper.  Turn shirt inside out, put freezer paper shiny-side down, apply hot iron. 



I used Derwent Inktense pencils for the whiskers. (Another recent purchase inspired by the Gelli Arts Blog--they are costing me money!) I dipped the pencil point in water before each stroke, and got a nice thick line.



"I love my red shoes!"



I got the kids to model their new clothes after they opened presents. Kate loves her hoodie!



Andy's a bit less demonstrative, but I think he likes the shirt!



I wasn't overly swamped with stressful Christmas preparations, and these didn't take too long, so it was a fun creative project and it worked out great!  I must do more!  I think next time I will try fabric paint--even with the addition of the textile medium, the acrylic is a bit stiff.