Space Shirt

Or the SPAAACE shirt, as I've been calling it. Made for the #ArtisanCraft Creative Craft Challenge of bleach painting.

I did originally intend to have this done over a week ago, i.e., the end of August and therefore the end of that month’s Challenge, but damn that goddamn blue dye. I had to do three applications of the stupid stuff to get it to show at all, and even that still isn’t enough. Batik dye just isn’t made for fabrics that used to be black, I guess. The green and red aren’t as bright as I would’ve liked either, but at least what is there only needed one go at it to show up. (The more vibrant blueish patches are from fabric markers that I bought later. They smell like death.)

At first I had no clue what to do for this one, though I really wanted to have a go at it. Then Curiosity stuck its landing on Mars and I was all “Fuck yeah, SPACE,” and got the idea to do a space-themed shirt, because black shirt + whitish bleached spots = stars in space.

THIS IS HOW CHIM’S MIND WORKS, OKAY?

And then Neil Armstrong died, so I suppose this is kind of a tribute to him as well. Just celebrating the awesomeness of space in general. There are nebulae on the front and sleeves, a large spiral galaxy on the back, medium-sized galaxies on the shoulders and smaller ones here and there over the rest of it, and the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope on the front pocket because yes.



My first attempt at the big spiral galaxy on the back involved a sort of reverse tie-dye, but that didn’t really give me the visual effect I wanted, so I did the rest of it using a spray bottle to ‘paint’ the arms. The other galaxies and the ISS and HST I did with small paintbrushes, and the nebulae up the front and arms of the shirt involved scrunching up the fabric into untidy bunches and just going nuts with the spray bottle. I also used an eyedropper here and there. The bleach bleed-out into the fabric is great for nebula effects, but not so much for detail work; I had more ambitious things in mind for this but had to scrap them because of it. (But I have plans for next time, oh yes.)

Planz.

Anyway, after the bleach did its thing and I rinsed it out and let the shirt dry, I went at it with green, blue and red batik dye. As mentioned, it didn’t work quite as well as I would’ve liked, but I was kind of expecting possible failure, or at least limited success, and I’ve learned things for next time. Cue three rounds with the blue dye, then death-markers, then GLITTER. The spiral galaxy on the back has been painted with glitter paint to simulate stars: there’s gold in the core and down the centres of the arms for the middle-aged, stable, Sun-like stars; blue (it’s really more purple, but I didn’t have blue blue, okay?) along the edges of the arms for the younger, hotter stars; and blotches of red for the clusters of older supergiants, because even in my art I go for scientific accuracy. Or as much as I can get with bleach and glitter, at any rate. I was referencing a photo of M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, when I was doing the glitter painting, if anyone cares about that kind of thing. I expect I’ll have to redo the blue and red at some point in the near future because that glitter glue stuff is not meant for decorating fabric and will probably wash out the moment this thing gets wet, but it makes an okay stand-in for supplies I didn’t have on hand at the time.

FUN FACT: Bleach dissolves natural sponges. Oops.

Time Spent: Couple hours spread out over the course of two weeks.

Tools & Materials: Black cotton dress shirt, plastic sheet, duct tape, spray bottle, bleach, various paintbrushes, sponge, eyedroppers, paper towel (actually toilet paper, but whatever), vinyl gloves, glass candle-holders (I mixed the batik dyes in them), ice cream tub, yoghurt container, measuring spoons/cups, bathroom sink, broken plastic fork, batik dye (red, blue, green), batik fixative, salt, water, light and dark blue fabric markers, gold glitter fabric paint, red and blue-violet glitter glue, baking paper, clothes iron, Astronomy Picture of the Day for reference photos.