This t-shirt is a little love letter to screen printing (and mantises, of course). For this piece, I pulled from techniques I’ve picked up over the years—some taught to me by the incredible printmaking professors I’ve been lucky to learn from, and others I discovered through my own trial-and-error in the studio.
Programs: Adobe Illustrator and Clip Studio Paint
I experimented with a few different techniques to get the look I wanted—one of them involved drawing directly onto acetate with India ink and a dip pen to create a kind of DIY film negative. For the text, I printed it onto regular copy paper and then coated the paper in oil to make it translucent. The mantis itself was hand-drawn on the acetate, while the lettering was handled separately on the oiled paper.
Design printed on various types of paper and fabric
Process of drawing the transparency sheet with india ink
Full print on shirt before the patch is sewn on
Printed type
Inital praying mantis sketch
Printed mantis.
Vector letters
Cutie found in a garden!
