Category: t-shirt design

fonts, Illustrations, Pen and Ink Drawing, t-shirt design, whimsy

Tell me something I don’t know

Michele B. Naquaiya

I have had this sketch in my portfolio for a long time. It’s india ink on paper with a caligraphy nib. I love the immediacy of it and I have used it before on greeting cards. I bought a font a while ago called Modernissimo. I love this font but could not find a use for it until today. When I saw the sketch, I remembered the font and put them together. So much of making things is like doing puzzles. You are always trying to fit things together the best way.
I thought about adding color but I think it will work on it’s own. The elements are strong and black and white is simple and strong. Here’s the link to see it on TeePublic.

Illustrations, scratchboard drawing, simple photoshop, t-shirt design

Playing with the moon outside her gate

Michele B. Naquaiya

I guess you could call this a composite drawing and the category would be surrealist art. That’s ok with me. It is a composite because the Hopi girl with firecrackers is an old scratchboard from years ago.

I masked her and her firecrackers out from the black textured background and got the idea for the gates from a snapshot I took from the tv in an old black and white basil rathbone film of Shirlock Holmes. I loved the moodiness of the view of the foggy atmosphere and the far away landscape in the film.

So I started putting pieces together in photoshop 2018… I just wanted to basically create a mood with the art. It went through a lot of changes. I had an idea in my head of a piece of art where the subject was coming out of the background frame. This turned out differently., Don’t ask me how I ended up with this but that a learning curve for you.
As usual, the problem with this kind of art is that it’s really hard to put into a specific category for commercial use. So when I go to fill out tags for it, the category that came the closest was I’m guessing is surrealistic. Who would buy this and how would they search for it in their tags? I would buy it since I like it but what do I know. I’m prejudice.
Nonetheless, it was fun and fairly quick and turned out completely different than I thought. I’m perfectly ok with that since I would not even do it if it wasn’t fun. Here’s the link if you want to check it out…..

fantasy illustration, Illustrations, simple photoshop, t-shirt design, thoughts behind the work

Love and hot cocoa t shirt designing

Michele B. Naquaiya

More line art and experimenting with a few coloring details and playing with fonts. I drew this in photoshop and used a quick method of coloring under the line art. This is not the professional way to do it but…I redrew this so many times, I just wanted to finish it. For a comic book the professional way is to make the flats first and then color, and then render.

I know this art is pretty flat and there is no light source and no rendering, but…. I wanted something quick to try out a few shades of separate colors to see how they would stand out on their own on various fabrics. I am happy with the four shades of green and the four shades of blue in the fairy’s wings. They do give the art a little depth. I think the shades could have been a little stronger with each step though. It did load well and you can see a distinction in the colors on all kinds of fabrics. I put a lot of thought into placing a heart above her head to show what she is dreaming about–love. I had one more heart but decided that one was better than two–less is more. The cocoa cup color repeats in her dress. I’m hoping the cup starts to resemble a magic globe that she is dreaming into.

I’ve been studying the art of the tshirt for a while now. Aside from the obvious there is a lot to this medium. I am happy today as I had a lightbulb moment last night, looking at some of my favorite t-shirt artists and making mental notes on their thought processes.

I’m hoping to do this again and to see if I can build up a little speed. Another note is that the text and image can’t have much space between them because when it’s printed as a sticker, the parts should always be connected. I did color animation cells al long time ago and we had similar issues. fun.

Here’s a link to see the product