Wearable Art Shirt by Kecia Deveney

Heya, Kecia  Deveney here. Spring is here and I am craving bright beautiful colors! I found this top at the flea market and wanted to paint something on It. So it's perfect for my column this month. The shirt didn't cost me much, so as an experiment, I didn't have much to lose playing around.  

For this project, you will need a shirt. Wash and dry it and do not use any fabric softener or dryer sheets.  Different types of fabrics will behave differently. The loose weave on this top made the fabric slide around a bit. So I had to be conscious of that when making sure all lines on the stencil matched up as I proceeded. I used textile paints, but have in the past used acrylic paints with a fabric medium like GAC 900 by Goldens. (use a 1:1 mixing ratio of paint and medium. Adjust the consistency by adding more GAC as needed.) You will also need a piece of cardboard to put inside your shirt so that paint doesn't bleed to the other side. 

I am quite fond of a figurative look, so I went through my stencils and started grabbing from my stencil stash. I was looking for things that I could build a figure with. The only thing I knew was that I wanted it to look funky cool. I grabbed one of my favorite face stencils by Pam Carriker, called "Truth Face" (S650).  I started with black first to create some depth and then after that dried, I added color on top. 

Next I grabbed the stencil "Block door and ladders" by Angela Cartwright (L512). I thought the door would make a perfect body and one of the ladders could be the legs. 

Before adding the legs, I got excited to add this horse Angela Treat Lyon, called "Rider" (S772). I decided the horse needed to be gold.

I decided to begin painting in the face to create more interest and texture. As I proceeded I decided to give the face a 3rd eye using Sandy Setliff's "Artistic Muse Card" (L674). And then I thought I'd use the hand as well coming out of her head to create an element of some sort of tribal adornment or hair.

Back to Angela Cartwright's stencil (L512) and It was a quick add to use the smaller ladder for her legs to which I also added stripes. 

Lastly, I added some details (like the earring) and made her a heart from Laurie Mika's "ATC mix up sacred hearts" (L784). I wanted the heart to be more dimensional, so I stenciled It onto a piece of scrap canvas and hand-sewed It in place. After letting all the paint dry, I heat set It with the iron. 

I love how It turned out!