I started selling on cafepress some years ago. Please do NOT use CAFEPRESS. They are greedy CHEATS! And now add zazzle to the list of greedy cheats. I am looking for a new POD site.
Some of my paintings on T-shirts and other stuff. The origional painting can be found in the space painting gallery on this site.
back I bought this particular shirt to wear while doing art shows in the summer. I don't really expect anyone to buy my promotional logo here. But I have offered a discount on this site if you do! Using my own painting, (which is the source of my site title "Artmakers Worlds") I developed this graphic logo. If you would like to order a shirt with this logo, please contact me. I don't have it on line at this time. I'll offer you a 20% discount on any ONE job you hire me for if you order a logo shirt.
While I was still attending college I worked a summer job in a T-shirt silk screen place. I was their graphic artist using Freehand 5 on a mac. I learned a lot while working there including some tricks for getting a six color halftone seperation to turn out looking as close to an airbrush image as possible. Unfortunately at the time, I never dreamed I would be in business for myself and didn't keep digital copies of all the work I did there. I do have a pile of shirts they let me keep. This is a scan of one of the more complicated designs.
As acting president of the Dowagiac Art Guild (A local artist group I joined years ago,) I set up another store on CafePress.comto raise funds for the guild. ALL proceeds from sales on this store were donated to the Dowagiac Art Guild. The guild in turn held classes for the public, and various other fundraisers year round. The Dowagiac Art Guild has set up a scholaorship fund with Southwestern Michigan College some years ago to help local talanted art students. (I was a recipient of one of their annual scholarship awards.) Sadly, the guild has disbanded. Their fund goes on though. I keep the shirts here just to show more samples of my work. Some years ago the Dowagiac Art Guild tried opening an art gallery in town. The Rose Gallery was named after our founding member Rose Potter. Alas, this venture proved too expencive to keep open and in December of 2004 the gallery closed.
My very first, and best client has been using me to design all his T-shirts and hats. Here are just a few examples. I've been using various card game phrases. My favorite has to be "Puppy Toes." haha...
One of the hats.
The above few designs are simple, and done fairly cheaply. In fact a few only run $10.00 if this client only wanted one line of text which I could email. This is a fine example of the other end of the scale. Mother Earth I was commissioned to do this image. I was given a drawing of a woman holding an orb and we don't know who did that one. I don't like using other peoples work and being told to "alter it." But this was SO drastically changed I don't feel like I plagiarized at all. Her expression, eyes and mouth are about the only elements that weren't altered much. I was given a list of instructions. Change the orb to earth, show just enough "skin" to let on that she is naked without exposing any boob. The original artwork had her holding this orb out like a basketball so the pose had to change. I made her look like she was cradling the earth more. I was asked to make her hair seaweed, put fish swimming through it, maybe add coral and sea horses in the hair, add the shell bracelet, change the head band to shells. Frame the whole image with wales or dolphins or something. Then it was my idea to add the driftwood which really framed her better and allowed the seaweed to flow over and under adding to the 3D look. Unlike most of the above examples which were done in the computer, this one is fine art. Drawn large, with color pencils on high quality paper, my client got a nice frameable piece of artwork as well as digital versions to be used on T-shirts. A design like this one, will run several hundred dollars. But it's worth it! The tiny image here doesn't do this image justice. Except for my use on this site, when I do a commission job like this on request, I consider it sold. Rights to do what ever belong to my client now. (Note, I did his logo too. A sample of that is also in my graphics section.)
Eagle illustration. This was a commission job I took for a T-shirt company who found my site and contacted me. It's done in quill pen and ink, on good quality artist paper. Very detailed, each feather shows incredible detail. Then the image was scanned so the digital version could be used on T-shirts and both digital versions and the artwork were sent to my client.
The above Eagle image was done some time ago, and this client, (who I will NOT be naming or linking to here,) was in a big hurry for this image. I worked hard on this, stayed up late and sent him his artwork as soon as humanly possible. Then he made me chase him down for almost a YEAR for payment! I was also working on several mock ups for more work which I stopped after the first month of emails. Time wasted on several samples that never resulted in work and he up and vanished. So. Since I got jerked around I went ahead and used this design again on my own! (because of him and a few more like him I now have to ask for payment or at least a deposit up front! No more trusting people. Darn shame.) Even though he did abuse my trust, I still don't feel right about using artwork someone else bought and paid for. (Eventually.) Though I used the design, it's been altered. Using Photoshop tools, I can make the Eagle fold and curve to match the flag it's on. And it was faded so that it is ghostly. Not to mention a whole lot smaller than the full size artwork OR the scan I sold with it.