Screen Printing T-shirt Designs with Silhouette Cameo Cut Vinyl Stencils

I make a lot of stuff  and I never get around to documenting it. Here are some of them coming at you...in posting dribbles.  

My husband and some friends from work and I went to the Treasures of Ancient Egypt: Sunken Cities exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art* in January (2021) and one of the objects (Statue of Taweret) just called out to me..."make me into a t-shirt..." So, for our 8th wedding anniversary (bronze) I made my husband that shirt! 

I opened the photo I took of Taweret in photoshop and simplified the design so I could then send it through my cameo silhouette craft machine and cut it out in vinyl to make a screen print template. 

reverse of screen printing frame with vinyl stencil applied. 

photo inspiration and final screen print of Taweret

You might notice that I made the figure of Taweret slightly plumper than in the photograph. I thought it would make her more comical (as if it weren't already) but I might revisit her original figure again in the future. We'll see. My husband liked her so much he said I could sell these. 

I used a bronze metallic acrylic paint but the metallic sheen doesn't show as well in photographs. 

This was the first time I have tried screen-printing using cut vinyl and it worked really well.

My husband graduated from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. Sadly no longer open. 

For this one I used silver metallic acrylic paint for "Brooks" and titanium white acrylic paint for "Institute". 

Don't mind his expression. He really does love it. And don't worry, he has more than one plaid shirt. 

Do you watch TV? Of course you do. Do you like Sci Fi? We do. Have you seen The  Expanse? It's very good. I highly recommend it. 

If you watch the show you  might recognize this emblem. This was my first attempt at two color screen printing with the same vinyl template technique. The red ink did not fully cover the white, but it makes it look purposefully worn out. I love it! What do we call that? A Happy Accident? Thanks Bob. 

I don't have a picture of husband wearing it, but I swear he loves it.  He likes everything I make for him....or he's a very good liar.  

And last (for now) but definitely not least....first, a long explanation....

This one was a labor of love. I had been sketching the idea for this shirt on and off for a while. A long while....

Finally I came up with the above layout and basic design. Final sketch in red ink. (you never know when or where inspiration hits, or what type of writing implement is around.) I took it into photoshop and removed the color so I could visualize it better.  I also wanted...oh, wait. Maybe I should tell you what is going on here? 

See, my husband loves Pink Floyd, and their original line up included a fella named Syd Barrett. Syd had great talent and creativity, but he also had mental health problems, which eventually led to him leaving the band. He has, to this day, left an indelible mark on the other members of Pink Floyd, as well as their fans. 

The band wrote a song inspired by Syd, Shine On You Crazy Diamond. My design, a diamond incorporating a very stylized song title also included the name, SYD. I don't know if it occurred to the band but I'm staking my claim that "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", broken down to it's major theme "Shine You Diamond", (because he was a diamond before he spiraled) spells SYD, which you can see I have spelled out on the face of the diamond. I wanted this shirt to celebrate not only the song, but also Syd Barrett, and of course, Pink Floyd.  

Whew. that's a lot of thinking for a t-shirt design....

Now, most of the modern world knows this album cover for Pink Floyd's album, Dark Side of the Moon: 

I wanted to incorporate this prism design into my diamond. And below is my final design seen on the computer and cut from vinyl on my Silhouette cutting machine. 

I am not pleased with colors or placement of the rays, and I also want to print it again on a black shirt, which would be more fitting, but blue was all I had at the time. I will rework this in the future...

Also, just for reference, I used all acrylic paints by Liquitex and FolkArt paints. I have since invested in some Speedball screen printing paints. 

Come back for more dribbles of art and stuff.

♥

Thank you for visiting!

*sorry if you wanted to visit this exhibit. We saw it on the last weekend it was in town.