Tati, the Artsy

19th January was Dexter‘s birthday, and unfortunately I didn’t have time to post about that. Yes, my little dog is 1 year old already, can you believe? He’s now an adolescent! Really! Well, one dog’s year, as I know, is something like 15 human years. But, I don’t care: he’s always my baby!

Then, I am posting some doodles of him that I did in my sketchbook. Drawing him and his toys is very cool. My house is a mess, a lot of toys scattered on the floor and I gave up of trying to organize them!

The weather here is very, very hot! I am not kidding!!! So, my husband and I decided to cut his fur. I know he’s a Shih Tzu, and has to have the Shih Tzu’s style… But, he’s feeling great, agile, running and jumping here and there! Even without all that fur, he’s still cute, looking like a large dog puppy. This picture above I took when he arrived from the Pet Shop. 4 days after (today), his fur is growing back a little and Dexter is looking prettier!
Dogs are so lovely! If you have a dog too, you can speak about your best friend on comments.

One of things I want to do is selling t-shirts painted or printed by myself. I just didn’t know how: hand-painted or screen-printed.
Then I researched about them on internet and watched great tutorials on YouTube – you can learn everything you want there! Paint tees is easy (it’s just paint a t-shirt with fabric paints), but it’s a hard work, you have to create unique pieces, and charge a little expensive price for it. Hand-painted t-shirts are good for commissions, I believe. Screen-printing is the best choice, but unfortunately there’s no space in my apartment for all those frames and equipments… So, googling more, I found something very interesting: Stencils!
This stenciling technique seems to work more with spray. However, I can’t use sprays on home, because of Dexter – he follows me everywhere (even my canvas paintings are protected with liquid varnish). Using paints on stencil is messy. The paint can’t be wet and there’s also an special brush for that. I bought this brush, but it didn’t work too – or I didn’t use it correctly. Then, I tried a roller and it worked perfectly! To make my stencils, I am using laser film – I had a job years ago in a Print Shop, and got some of those transparent paper -, and I cut my designs carefully with a craft knife. Don’t think it’s hard to do… actually it’s funny!

Stencils are recommendable for t-shirts and walls. I tried to paint with acrylic on paper, but… Ok, no more experiences! If you’re interested to learn, search on Google or YouTube for “Stencil Painting” or “Stencil Printing”. You’ll find a lot of how-to-do sites.
Well… It’s time to print some t-shirts! I can’t wait to post them here!
[edit] I just found this video that shows exactly the roller technique I am “blogging” about.