Hi, I’m Nick and this is a show about Art.
This show is all about your art and your creations.
Every episode is different but every episode will challenge you to try new things, learn
new stuff and become a better creator.
Oh, and let’s inspire and encourage each other through it all.
Let’s get into it!
Hey artistic badass’s!
Wanna create some art together?
Well you’ve come to the right damn place!
But before we get all creative, some of you awesome people participated in last week’s
James Ormiston based artistic challenge.
Let’s check out some of your awesome creations now!
This amazing piranha hot air balloon was created by LaRoach.art.
Amazing!
And this golf ball through a banana was created by Billy Robinson!
Well done guys, Ive decided to get both of you a free artistic badass sticker.
I’ll be sending you a message on your social media, so watch out for it.
Great job for everyone who participated!
Remember, it doesn’t matter what your skill level is as an artist, everyone can get featured
and anyone can win a prize!
Alrightio – now for some art inspiration going – let’s get into doing some damn
artworks!
Crank up the machine!
The machine has spoken!
It looks like I’ll be teaching you how to turn a linework artwork into a digital print
for tshirts and much much more.
The first thing we’ll have to do is to create an artwork to turn into a digital print!
I’ve been wanting to make a heart shaped artwork using watercolour and ink for awhile
now, so this is the perfect excuse!
For reference material I considered ripping out my own heart, but due to unanimous advice
from my friends and family, I’m going to use google search instead.
I’ll be drawing this artwork on an A4 piece of paper which will easily fit on a T-shirt
print.
Let’s quickly bang this artwork out so we can get to the juicy part of how to turn a
traditional artwork into a digital print.
So here are my materials.
I’m using a palette, some watercolour and a brush and pen.
You wouldn’t believe it, but you actually need a brush to paint watercolours.
I tried using my fingers, but it didn’t work very well.
I’m pretty happy with the colours I choose here.
They’re like half way realistic half way like pink, purple and teal.
I’m waiting for the watercolours to dry now before I can do the ink work.
This can take a little bit of time and it’s easy to get bored and pretty fire during these
circumstances.
And now I’m back to dripping, okay, it’s dry enough for me to drip it and put it up
vertically.
I did the linework too and now I’m fixing it up with a fineliner.
And here it is.
I think it worked out pretty well, I’m happy with it.
__
Now that you have your artwork, let’s turn it into a digital file!
First step is to scan your artwork or take a picture with a good quality camera!
The better quality scan or picture you take, the easier and better the digital print will
be.
Now that that’s done – load it into Photoshop!
If you don’t have Photoshop, use a free program like Gimp or paint.net.
Both of these free photo editing versions will do the same job with similar tools and
shortcuts.
You can find hundreds of quick start guides and tutorials for gimp and paint.neton YouTube
if you aren’t familiar with them already.
There’s two ways we can turn this scan or photo into a digital print.
Let’s start with the quick version and then the longer version after that.
The Quick Version:
The first thing I’ll do is to delete all the white space around the artwork.
Otherwise the design will just be an A4 rectangle, and that looks horrible.
Like really horrible.
Trust me – I’m an expert in horrible.
We’ll be using the wand tool to get rid of the white space.
I also don’t really want the watercolour drips in this print – so we’ll be taking
them out as it’s much quicker.
I’ll show you a longer method of leaving them in later.
To make the wand tool’s job easier, we’ll use a ‘levels’ adjustment layer.
Crank the light level up and then we’ll use the wand tool at a tolerance of 33 to
select and delete everything outside of the heart shape.
Create a new layer behind the heart and paint it black so we can see any remaining stray
pixels.
Delete all of this with the eraser and wand tool.
Now we’re going to edit the ‘levels’ adjustment layer back down to a normal level.
Play around with the ‘levels’ adjustment layer until it looks far less faded and then
use a ‘saturation’ level to make the colour pop.
The last thing to do is to move the artwork to the centre of the canvas.
Save it as a .png file.
Then it’s ready for upload on RedBubble.
The Longer Version:
Duplicate the scanned image into two layers.
Hide the second layer.
Now we’re going to use the ‘levels’ adjustment layer the same way we did for the
quick method.
Delete all of the colour on the outside and inside of the heart – we only want the linework.
Once we only have the linework, save it as a png – now open this file in Adobe Illustrator
and use the image trace function with white space unchecked in the advanced options.
This makes the linework silky smooth.
Export this file as a .png file after you’re done.
If you don’t have adobe illustrator, don’t worry, you can do a similar effect to this
in free software by selecting all the line-work and go over it with a brush.
Now import your illustrator file back into Photoshop and align it perfectly over your
unrefined linework.
Duplicate the new line work image twice and merge the layers together to make it look
even sharper.
Hide your unrefined layer as we don’t need it anymore.
Now, select your fresh to death line-work, and click onto your hidden layer and delete
it.
This will take out most of the unrefined line-work in the original artwork.
Hide the linework layer, and let’s get to work deleting all of the white space.
Use the wand tool with the selection brush to avoid selecting lower opacity parts of
the watercolour.
You may even have to go through with the eraser tool and delicately trim some of the white
from the colour.
To make this easier, use a black background layer.
This process can be really tedious and there’s a lot of pixel pushing with the eraser tool
and wand tool.
Just accept that this sometimes can take a lot of time but it’s worth it because you’re
going to get the best print at the end of it.
Now we’ll deal with the bits of linework left on our watercolour.
Unhide our linework artwork and click back to our colour layer.
Use the clone stamp or healing brush to get rid of the left over linework.
The only thing left to do on this print is to apply a saturation layer to make the colour
pop.
Save as a .png file and then upload it to RedBubble and apply to as many clothing items
and products as you can!
It will look great on t-shirts, clocks, notebooks and more.
And that’s how I turn a traditional artwork into a digital print!
Here is how the quick and long methods look together side by side.
Let me know which one you prefer in the comment section below!
There’s so many ways of converting a traditional artwork into a digital print and it will depend
on what art materials you use, so play around with this method and find what works the best
for your work.
Artist challenge.
Participate in this challenge with the hashtag #AShowAboutArt on Instagram and Redbubble.
Participants will be featured on the next episode!
Now that I’ve taught you how to turn a traditional artwork into a digital print..
.your challenge for this week is to do just that!
But if you don’t have the time, that’s alright.
You’re optional challenge is to create a heart shaped artwork!
You can use any sort of heart shape and any type of materials you want.
Hell, if you want, you could even use a banana with lemon ink or maybe a cabbage with vegemite
watercolour.
Up to you.
What matters is the artwork!
Doesn’t matter what type of skill you have as an artist, just have fun, experiment and
have a go!
Make sure you use the hashtag #ashowaboutart on Instagram and redbubble so I can see it.
Thanks for drawing with me!
Bye for now, but not forever!