This is a T-Shirt I made for my daughter Emma. I wanted to create something special for her, so I tried a few different things on this one. I started with a medium Black Beefy-T, folded and pleated it in my 'standard' pattern, then tied it with fishing line. The pleating and tying were designed to keep the thickness of the cloth at a minimum over the entire shirt, to allow the bleach to penetrate evenly and to not have large unbleached areas. It was done more randomly than regularly. I typically use rubber bands to tie, but have been wanting to try different resists. I did use one rubber band for the triangular area at the back of the neck. The fishing line was not bad to work with, other than cutting into my first index finger joint if I wasn't careful. It compressed the fabric nicely, with a fairly tight result. I knew using bleach would result in a pinkish shade on Hanes Black shirts, which gives a nice contrast. The fishing line resulted in faint spider-web type lines, which when combined with the sharp contrasts between the colors, give a very nice variety of effects. There are the usual animals and faces, but this one reminds me of insects trapped in amber, shadows in mirrors, and other half-perceived entities, just flickering long enough to spark a memory of recognition. Good art should be disturbing...
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