How to translate a painting into clothing?
June 5, 2008 9:37 PM   Subscribe

How to translate a painting into clothing?

I've got some abstract paintings that I think would make smashing halter tops. How would I go about accomplishing this? I'm thinking iron-on transfers are not the way to go - maybe screenprinting?
posted by unmake to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (5 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
If you are the artist, you could do another, similar piece on a halter top with fabric paint. It spreads just like regular paint, and to make it set you air dry it and then throw it in the dryer. It it's not your art you could...you know... copy it.
posted by farishta at 3:03 AM on June 6, 2008


If it's not your art, that is. Depending on the piece, you could also make stencils by taking a picture and printing it onto cardstock, then cut out the relevant bits. Good luck!
posted by farishta at 3:05 AM on June 6, 2008


If you're confident with your sewing skills why not use applique or patchwork? It'll wear a lot nicer than iron ons or fabric paint (both of which are too stiff for garments, IMO, better suited to tote bags and the like)
posted by Kellydamnit at 5:52 AM on June 6, 2008


Response by poster: This idea originally occurred to me while building a website for a friend, spending hours looking at her work - pieces like this and this, which are far beyond my abilities to duplicate by hand.

The other thought I had was maybe it's possible to have these printed onto a large piece of fabric, and then use that to create a garment based on something I've deconstructed. It seems like this service is available, but spendy.

Kellydamnit, were you talking about, say, printing the images as in this howto, and then sewing that to the garment?

(Friend and I talked over this idea and she's into it, but busy with other things - I thought I'd explore the feasibility. I know nothing about clothesmaking, but can/could learn?)
posted by unmake at 6:20 PM on June 6, 2008


Someone beat me too it but yeah my first thought was that you could recreate (the first one anyway) it easily enough with very random patchworking. With a bit of satin ribbon in there too. The sort of drizzled bits would have to be done in paint but maybe your friend would be happy to just put the finishing touches on it for you.

There is an acrylic that's colour fast (NOT in HOT water though! Ugh! What started as black red and purples on a white with blue lines top is now black red pale electric blues and purples on a peach with blue lines top. The designs held though!) but in cold-warmish it's fine. I'll dig it out if you're interested in the name? It's very cheap and it's very good. The red is really dark and deep and glorious!! (If I wanted a red that was like watery rust... I'd make one with a dab of this good red)

The trick with the patchwork is to have all your lines really sharp crisp and clean. Especially the corners and points. Um do you know someone who can sew? You can do clever things by running the grain in the fabrics in different directions ect. ect.
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 12:39 AM on June 7, 2008


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