Most t-shirts are screenprinted, some are printed with what is essentially a giant inkjet printer. But few are printed using woodcuts! I’ve never seen it before now myself.
But judging from the t-shirts printed by Tugboat Printshop, it looks like a pretty good method! They currently have three t-shirt designs available, of which these are two:
Night Sprawlers from Tugboat Printshop
Polar Bear Playing Solitaire from Tugboat Printshop
The only thing I don’t like about their t-shirts is that they have a relatively large (though creatively incorporated) print of ‘Tugboat Printshop’ on the backs of all of their shirts. Hopefully their future designs will lack these back prints, because what they handprint on the front of these tees is quite lovely!
Link: [Tugboat Printshop]
Expensiveness: $24
You can’t get much indier than Etsy for IndieWeek!
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that they have a video tutorial for printing t-shirts with woodcuts! Click the link or watch it here:
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You know, I bet if we get the right kind of ink we could do this with the woodblocks in the Bow and Arrow…hmmmmm…
I absolutely love the designs on the shirts! the mushrooms are totally awesome and the waves with the penguins is so rad. I was wondering if you also carved the woodcuts yourselves?? I would love to see a video of how you do that.
Great video and design. Thanks for sharing! I’m researching making wood block clothes for infants, and wondered if any of you guys could recommend a healthy water-based ink. And I don’t have a press, but do you think for small pieces that a good manual hand/foot press could create an even spread?
Hi Vanessa,
Waterbased inks, despite their innocuous sound, are not actually any healthier for the wearer than plastisol inks. If properly cured, both should be perfectly durable and remain affixed to the shirt instead of rubbing off on an infant’s skin. My concern would be ingestion of the ink; the thing to do would be to get the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for inks to check their toxicity. As for the press, I know only about screenprinting. Hopefully the video was helpful. You could always try contacting Tugboat Printshop through their Etsy shop!
Cheers,
Joe