New Linocut for a Cause

Limited Edition T-Shirt Available for purchase at portchesterdogpark.com.

My sister is raising funds to bring a much-needed dog park to her town of Port Chester. I had originally created a logo for her group (shown below) which was silkscreened onto t-shirts and made available for sale at all Port Chester Dog Park (PCDP) fundraising events, but we needed something a little more. There was a special event at Garcia's at the Capitol Theater and she needed some special edition shirts to offer for sale at the event. So I thought, why not try to print a linocut plate onto the shirts and make them into wearable art? The above image is the result of that experimental effort.

Though I had never done it before, I figured that since oil-based printing ink is very tenacious and never wants to come off your clothes, I could use it to print tees. This notion was born from the many printing "smocks" I have as a result of the ink-clings-to-everything principle. So, my sister got the shirts and I carved the linoleum and we were set to go when life's ups and downs took a big nosedive in the week leading up to the benefit at Garcia's. It was a very rough week but at least the printing went pretty smoothly as I inked the plate and ran the shirts through my etching press. Drying time took longer than expected due to a combination of the weather being pretty cold and damp and the shirt fabric not letting the ink soak in as much as on the test shirts (old, worn tees) which dried faster. But, thanks to a tip from a printmaking artist friend, Ilse, I was able to iron the print using newsprint and a very hot iron which made drying time a lot faster. Note: this technique does lift some of the ink away.

If you have any interest in getting one of these shirts and helping to fund the Port Chester Dog Park, please go to their website: http://portchesterdogpark.com/ or their fundraising page.

The logo shirts are for sale too: