ink blot shirts
August 12th, 2010
In college I had a brief fascination with Rorschach and fell in love with his earnestly scientific, but mostly artistic ink blots. After I graduated, I took them down from my wall and promptly forgot about them. Until I saw Martha’s gorgeous take on them in her beautiful line of homewares. I would have liked to pull out my prints and put them back on the wall but I seemed to have randomly dispersed my possessions all over the country after college, so instead I just made some shirts with my kids.
I used this tutorial on instructables for guidance, but did a few things differently: I taped my shirt around the cardboard instead of tacking it on; he says to not press hard when you fold the shirt over, but I found I had to; and you can see that I fiddled with the image–adding more paint after I already printed it and then folding it again, which will make the image shift a bit, but I sort of like how that looks. The ones the kids did are more crisp and clear because they just did it once and they were done.
This would be a great project just on paper and it’s a fun what shapes do you see game–without all the psychological baggage of course.
wonderful idea! I’m sure my daughter will love the mess AND the result :)
These are adorable! I want to make one for myself!
what a fanTAStic idea!!!! I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So cool and wonderfully simple at the same time! What a great project. What kind of ink/ paint did you use?
emily, I just used some navy fabric paint I had on hand.
This is such an awesome idea, and they turned out great!
I find something very interesting about the idea of Rorschach on children… I like it a lot. Great project, Meg!
how cute!
Ooh, nice. I had to go cold turkey off the tie dye but I think I need to give this a try too. I’ll have to try not to get sucked in.
I just purchased a set of inkblots from 1948 on ebay. I can’t wait to get them matted and framed and hung in my dining room! I started thinking about inkblots after seeing a piece of body painting by yves klein:
http://klineb582.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/yves-klein-untitled.jpg
Although his inkblots are really naked ladies!! After that I became intent on finding a set of inkblots for myself.
I LOVE your inkblot shirts/onesies! What a great idea. I think one in an adult size is definitely in order! Thanks for sharing the link to the beautiful pillows and runners too.