Saturday 22 June 2013

Deer Berlin

I have been very lucky in my life to have visited quite a few cities and among my favourites is defiantly Berlin, Its streets where full of unique, creative bars and boutiques.  There where different districts, all with their own feel to them we had two weeks, so we did a lot of walking and really enjoyed discovering new things around each corner. One place we came across was a former butchers shop transformed into the coolest screen-printing studio/gallery, I'm saying butchers as they still had the meat display cabinet, but thankfully long gone were the bratwurst and pork chops replaced with handmade brooches and other cool things.  Along with a couple of screen-printed pictures I had selected out of a sample folder.  Brett spotted this t-shirt, an old champion shirt over printed with the image of this sweet deer stag.

Well it's been well worn and and is a little holey so not wanting to throw it out, it had to be re-invented somehow and not hidden away in a drawer.  Finally realising the solution was to make a canvas block, I had though about framing it, but framing is best done by the professionals in my opinion, and fabric goes so well on canvas blocks, so that's what I did today and here it is . . .


 Up-cycled t-shirt up-cycled into canvas art

First off I removed all the excess fabric from the t-shirt, using pinking sheers in-case you have a close edge, they will minimise fraying I had to take care to leave as much fabric near the neckline, so I had enough to wrap over the top edge of the canvas.
I then laid the canvas block onto the image making sure I could cover the entire image comfortably, I then removed a little more of the t-shirt fabric getting a closer shape still leaving enough to wrap the block edges.
 Turning over the canvas block, I used a spray adhesive suitable for fabrics to coat the block, It works like spray mount giving a covering of glue and the ability to re-position a couple of times, I find this better than staples alone, as you don't get warping of the image due to the staples pulling but you still get a nice smooth finish.



it took a couple of goes carefully peeling and re-positioning the fabric piece until I had it in exactly the right position. I then sprayed the edges of the canvas taking care not to get the glue on the front of the fabric, and the pressed the fabric along the edges.




I folded the corners once and then again fixing with a single staple.  I also put in one staple along each side of the back of the canvas, you don't need to do this as the glue is strong enough it just neatens everything up. I then trimmed any excess fabric off. and here you go t-shirt transformed

 A lovely piece of art better than being hidden away in a drawer

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