Everything Old is New Again

You know the story -

You buy a new shirt - a new WHITE shirt.

I am an artist - almost everything I own has paint on it.

What doesn't have paint on it usually ends up with some other type of stain.

I am a bit of a "slob" - what can I say.

So why do I insist on trying to buy and wear white?

Oh well . . .I digress -

On with the story . . .

you wear the white shirt once.

You are very, very careful.

When it is dirty, you put it in the wash -

you look it over carefully and there are no food stains and no paint.

Whew! You did good.

The shirt is washed.

You even hang it to dry.

You go to wear it again and . . .WHAT????

It has a purple stain on it. Don't know what it is or where it came from.

It wasn't there when it went in the wash.

The shirt is now a paint shirt . . .or is it?

While on my weekend away, I decided to try an experiment.

I took the stained, but otherwise clean white shirt (that had only been worn once) and got it wet.

I gave it a good wringing out to remove the excess water.

And then . . .

fluid acrylic paints were put on a paper plate and I added water to them.

I watered them waaaaay down.

 and using my paint brush I started dabbing blobs of paint on my shirt.

I tried not to "paint" anything - just blobs.

I let the wet paint and the wet t-shirt do it's thing.

I added more colors - keeping in mind how the various color would react if they came in contact with each other.

All those years of painting with watercolors came in handy here!

I pulled some of the color in long lines to add variety.

Then I waited.

And waited.

For the shirt to dry a bit and let the colors set.

If I had been at home, I probably wouldn't have had to wait as long because it was was warm.

But I was on the coast and it was a bit cooler and damp out.

After it was "mostly" dry - I got out my bottle of scribbles three-dimensional paint.

Black was my color of choice.

And I began to add shape and texture.

The trick was to move my hand quick and not let the paint get too "thick".

I didn't want the end result to be stiff.

And I wanted it to have a very free, unformal style.

In the end - I think I turned that stained $7.00 tshirt into a custom designed shirt that I can wear with pride.

Hmmm . . .what other clothes do I have that could use a makeover?