Thursday, August 19, 2010

Process: New Soul Flower Block Print Tee!

One of our new t-shirt designs for fall is this Soul Flower block print shirt, available in women's and men's styles. Women's is a poly/cotton/rayon blend, and the men's is 100% organic cotton. And we're selling them for $15!



$15 Women's Tee....................................$15 Men's Tee


The design is meant to look like a traditional block print. So how did we do it? By carving into and printing a real linoleum block, of course! :)


(You can buy all these supplies at your local art store.)

The design was drawn on to the block, and then carefully carved out using sharp carving tools.

When the block was ready to be printed, water-based ink was rolled out on to a slab (piece of tin foil = easy clean up!)

Roll the ink on to the block in an even layer.

Block has a shiny, sticky layer of ink on the surface.

Got our paper ready (a thin rice paper is best for block prints), and grabbed a wooden spoon.

Lay the paper on the block, and burnish with a wooden spoon so the ink sticks to the paper and leaves a good, dark print.

Then we peeled the paper off, starting by peeking under a corner to make sure we burnished the ink down enough.

Finished print!

The next step was to scan the print into the computer, do a little adjustment so the design was completely black and white (no grays), and blow it up so it is larger than the original small size of the block. Send it over to our screenprinters (another cool printmaking process!), and you get an awesome final product!


Wanna win one?
Leave a comment on this post if you're interested in scoring one of these tees (either women's or men's) free! We'll randomly pick 3 winners on
Friday, August 27.

Thank you all for the awesome comments! We picked 3 winners!

38 comments:

  1. i love it. I remeber doing the blocks in school.

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  2. These look wonderful!! Great job soul-flower. I would love the womans T-shirt. Keep on creating and we'll keep on buying. You are amazing. SHINE ON!!!

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  3. oh that is rad! i would love this in the woman's t-shirt. it looks really comfy.

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  4. I Love These!!!!!!!!!! i do block t-shirt prints with my students its such a good way to recycle old shirts or pants!!!!

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  5. Awesome. I so remember doing this in school - way way back when!

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  6. That i super cool and earth friendly! I would love to win a womens one. Will these be for sale as well?

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  7. Yep, Amanda! These shirts are for sale right now on our site:

    http://www.soul-flower.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SOS&Product_Code=SOL207&Category_Code=

    http://www.soul-flower.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SOS&Product_Code=SOL080&Category_Code=

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  8. awesome t-shirt!!
    i love block printing! such a fun, artistic pastime :)

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  9. This is awesome! Makes me want to see if I can make a block t-shirt. These are great, thanks for showing all the pics! Fun!

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  10. Cool! Kinda like Pollock Phish prints... except it's Soul-Flower! :) Good stuff!

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  11. I love it...I been wishing you guys would make a logo shirt...I have so many people stop and ask where I got a soul flower item I'm wearing :)

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  12. I love it as well! Used to teach this to my students when I was teaching and now do a similar activity with my kids using styrofoam meat trays!

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  13. Very cool shirt. I would love to have one.

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  14. so I was going to say something very witty, but my 5-year old hasn't stopped talking/asking questions in the last 30 minutes. completely lost my train of thought. oh yah, love the shirt. website address on the back??

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  15. thanks, Laura! no website on the back, though... just the front print!

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  16. Nice design and thanks for putting all the steps on what's involved in making it. A special shirt for a special store :)

    Sugar

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  17. this is the coolest thing ever!! I love it!!

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  18. Love the shirt, I may even have to try making a shirt of my own, it sounds like fun!!

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  19. Love the shirt! Too cute! Great way to spread the word about Soulflower!

    -Ashton

    ashton.siess@yahoo.com

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  20. These shirts are great looking! I would love to show off your product!

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  21. So cool! I can't wait to try out block printing! I'd love to win one of the shirts, especially since my birthday is the day of the drawing. :)

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  22. p.s. Forgot to leave my email! aarfdoglover@yahoo.com

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  23. LOVE THE BLOCK PRINTS!!! Have to try it,looks super fun and relaxing!Love and Peace to my Buds!
    MUCHO LOVE-O,FRANKIE DEE

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  24. Love that look! Hope I'm a winner:)

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  25. Very cool. Thanks for the play by play. I now feel inspired to make a block print!

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  26. These shirts are so awesome and really display what a kind company you are! Nice work!

    I'd definitely wear one with pride :)

    I made a print block once with the same materials, years ago in high school. I made a sun, clouds and birds in the sky!

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  27. CaroleJerseyCity@gmail.comFriday, August 27, 2010 12:01:00 PM

    Thanks for the step-by-step, it looks like a cool project and the shirt is great!

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  28. We all shine on ... like the moon, and the stars, and the sun .... awesome shirt. LOVE it :)

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  29. I would love to help promote your awesome company by wearing this cute t-shirt.

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  30. Very cool, I love your clothes! My birthday list is a complete soulflower merch list, no joke!

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  31. Very cool! I love your clothes. My birthday list is completely made up of your stuff, no joke.

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  32. We all shine on ... like the moon and the stars and the sun !
    Awesome shirt - LOVE it :)

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  33. These are great tees! I love T-Shirts. The first one on the list seems like it works only with a specific look but very creative anyway.I love all of them, I laughed quite a bit reading them.

    crazy tees

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Leave a comment & rock on!