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Health & Fitness

T-Shirt Block Printing Test: Lemonade Day

When life gives you lemons, make Community Lemonade in Long Beach with me. Day 51 - I made stamps with my Mary, an amazing high school bio teacher about to head back to school.

. I'm taking the opportunity of this unplanned time off to connect with the many artists and creators in this wonderful city that I love. Come with me on my 100-day odyssey of art and creativity in Long Beach. I call it .

It's good to have friends.  It's especially good to have good friends.  Friend Mary came to visit today.  It may be the last time I see her for a while, as school is starting up and this amazing, much-awarded, high school biology teacher is headed back to work.  So before she goes back to school, I'm glad we had time to do a little block printing today.

August 21st was Day 51.  Mary and I made stamps and tried them out on an old stretch shirt.

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For today's experiments, I pulled out the Speedball inks that came with the block printing set I recently received.  They are pretty thick inks.  Apparently there's an 'extender' solution that we can add to thin these oil based paints a bit.  It wasn't included in the kit, so we used the inks in their concentrated form.

It's nice to have someone with which to do the projects.  We watched the video that came in the kit and set to work.

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.  The rubber ones that were affixed to the wood with rubber cement were no good.  The parts had separated from the wood, and left a red mess.  Mary suggested a glue gun.  Ooh, good idea... I'll look for it later.  So we worked with the other stamps.  Two dried horsetail reed stamps.  One with larger stems, one with the top of the reed branch.  One old pinewood derby car remnant with X's and lines carved into the face.

The instruction is similar for the three blocks, except that I would use a paintbrush for the irregular surface of the horsetail reed, and a brayer for the flat wood block stamp:

  • Squeeze ink onto plate (it is an oil based ink)
  • Use hard brayer to mix the ink (comes in the kit)
  • Apply ink to the plant matter of the horsetail reeds
  • Turn stamp inked side up and position Tshirt on stamp.  Use hand press to transfer ink to the shirt surface.
  • Re-ink and re-apply the stamp as you wish.  I went light on the ink (it was just a test, I have limited supplies and I liked the texture of the plant matter on the shirt).
  • The inked fabric should cure for a week before washing (August 28th is the earliest).  Even then, a cold water wash is recommended.  Apparently it is not necessary to heat set the ink.

It looks good.  The thin layer of paint meant that the texture of the horsetail reeds shows on the fabric.  There's a lot more to learn, but it's a start. I can try different colors, use more ink.

I also want to try out the carving tool that came with the kit, and carve a rubber stamp.

 Want more lemonade?       

And Tomorrow...

I visit with the Arts Council for Long Beach.

If you would like to contact me, please email me at  info@handmadepenguin.com

Trish Tsoiasue writes as herself about creative and maker topics for and as Handmade Penguin for the Handmade Penguin Blog.

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