Since I’ve been delving into drawing on the iPad, I have also learned about artists who are selling their work printed on products through Print-on-Demand (POD) companies. I thought I’d test a few items at a few different POD companies, and see if I can find practical ways to print my work and offer it for sale.
After reading the POD blogs for trends and ideas, I decided on a seasonal autumn design, and, as a starting point, chose an image I shot with my iPhone last Friday in a community garden. After a little work in Photoshop and with some iPhone filters, the image became more like a drawing, with less background detail and fewer colors. The yellow leaves really helped fall along!
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- September flowers at the edge of a garden.
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- A more graphic image created by digital processing.
At this point, I chose a product that I wanted to create with some version of this drawing. This time, I went with RedBubble.com because they have this cute sleeveless A-line dress.
I must digress…I love fall, it’s my favorite season by far. Here in Michigan, we get world-class, A-1 autumn life, with legitimate sweater weather, colorful falling leaves, hayrides—the whole bit. However, I remember living in the south when the only thing that changed in the fall was the calendar. If you wanted to change the season, all you could do was change the colors you wear, but you still needed lightweight clothes. Hence, the Fall Person dress was conceived!
RedBubble provides a template that can be used to place your artwork within the the fabric to be cut for the dress:
Two copies of the image are layered in Photoshop to make a drawing that fits the dress template.
From there, it’s just a matter of uploading the design to RedBubble. You have the opportunity to tweak the scale of your pattern and other small adjustments. It’s also very easy to apply your design to other products, and choose just the products that you want. In some cases, if I didn’t like how my pattern looked with a item, I just disabled that product. After agreeing to the terms that I have the rights to use the images (I do, I made them!), my dress design becomes instantly available for me or anyone else to order. Amazing!
That was so much fun, I went on and made a tote bag to go along:
