Have you ever printed onto fabric from your home printer? I’ve had good luck with it, but every now and then I want to print something larger. Like the background for Carefree. At 51″ high, I needed an online service to handle it for me. I used Modernyardage.com and was happy with the results.
Recently I found myself with a credit at Spoonflower.com, another online printing service. Since I didn’t have a particular project in mind, I decided to do some experimenting. I prepared a large file that would cover an entire yard, 45″ wide. It was a good opportunity to experiment with various sizes, resolutions, and artistic effects. This is the file which included notations about each image.
And the printed result.
Let’s take a closer look. These next two images are exactly the same, except the second one has been printed on fabric.
Actually, I think the fabric version looks better in person.
Here’s a detail shot of the largest image, on which I had used the paint daubs artistic effect. (PSE)
And the printed result. It definitely lost some sharpness, but I think it would be useful for most projects.
And the cropped sideways image.
With its printed counterpart.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with these. Still, I think I’d be most inclined to use such printing services for things that didn’t have to be exact. Things that were already vintage or could look somewhat distressed.
FYI: I used the least expensive fabric ($17/yard), and the hand of the fabric is unchanged.
What do you think? Would you ever use something like this in your art?
Ellen Lindner
P.S. You can read more about how I made Carefree on my old blog. Check out December 2014.
