I’ve enjoyed surface design for the past year and making designs in my spare time. I wanted to make a lesson for my students to learn more about it. Here is a preview of the lesson.

To purchase visit. Messy Art Teacher TPT Surface Design Lesson.

I’ve been experimenting on my own personal illustration work, while getting my MFA in Illustration. I decided to use some of my illustrations to make a free downloadable PDF for a bookmark and book plates. If you have little ones or for yourself feel free to download and cut them out.

Please do not resell or distribute. All rights belong the Messy Art Teacher. Thank you!

I decided I would try and do some testing with teespring. I’m testing out some of the wearable products and a tote bag. I did order one of shirts and found it was fine after washing. When I first got it I was concerned about the white ink that was not part of the design that was on the shirt. Once I washed it, it was fine.

Here is link to check out the products I’m testing. You do need to mark up from from what they have for starting price. I think personally their prices are a bit high.

I worked on a cut paper illustration of a dragon reading to some kids and thought I would turn it into a coloring sheet for kids that are stuck at home and want something fun to color. I would like to make some other fun PDF activities in the future. Stay tuned!

Here is the link FUN STUFF. Click Download file to get your PDF to download.

I have used Teespring with my students to create their tshirt designs in graphic design class. I did not have access to screenprinting in my classroom. With virtual learning for many teachers this might be an option to include so students can purchase their designs and have it shipped to them. I find that as a graphic designer it is a good idea to vet the vendors you use.

Some things to consider with POD (Print on demand).

QUALITY

I never had time in the past to order a tshirt from Teespring before. I wanted to check their quality. The shirt was a black tshirt. I have a link for the Youtube video. There were stray marks of the white ink on the sleeve. I was concerned initially in my review. Once I washed it the white ink washed away. It was a bummer when I first took it out of the bag. I ordered the premium black shirt unisex. The ink on my logo design held up from the first and a second wash.

TURN AROUND TIME

How long did it take to get my order? 3 weeks. If you are ok with that then that is fine. If it is for your students that will be ok. If you have a student that wants to start it as a side business they should be aware of this. Then they understand if they get a customer complaint about the turn around time.

TEESPRING USER INTERFACE

The interface of Teespring is pretty simple to use. They have an option to buy for yourself or make products for sale. I was attracted by the ease of set up and that is why I used it with my students. I would make sure if you have them set up accounts during class space them out. I’m guessing their site wondered why are all these new users coming from 1 IP address. Are they bots?

In the end some of students did order tshirts and they told me they were pretty happy with the results. They do more then shirts I had a student order a phone case with their design.

#teespring #pod #printondemandsites #graphicdesignlesson #messyartteacher

Over the past several years I’ve been doing interviews of creatives about their art journey. It’s been a great learning experience and I’ve found out some great tips and resources. Season 5 is starting this Jan. 3, 2021 with Jamie Zollars, children’s book writher and illustrator.

Listen to the past interviews at My Creative Life Podcast. I have over 50 interviews.

I posted this Freebie on my TPT store for the holidays. If you are an elementary teacher and want your students to draw and tell a story this worksheet provides them with lines and a start of their drawing of Santa. Santa Story Worksheet.

PDF file is ready to use! Happy Holidays! Thanks for all of the support through the year!

Sincerely,

Messy Art Teacher

I just found a site that allows you to generate free Favicons for your website. If you aren’t sure what that is, it is the little icon that shows up in the tab in your browser window. It’s a mini logo for your website.

Here is a link to it. https://freefavicon.com/

Make sure you read so you don’t end up click on an ad.

I’ve shot photos of all my students work or even my own art pieces. I’m not a photographer by trade, but I’ve had to teach the topic. Finding good video tutorials are really helpful. I recently invested in a DSLR camera for shooting images of my work. I’m posting this video tutorial that I found to be really helpful for tips for shooting the work. THIS IS NOT SPECIFIC TO A CAMERA BRAND. To learn how to use the specific Canon or Nikon etc you can find video tutorials separately from that. I used presets on my Nikon to try different White Balance settings. This video is pretty through and they have the challenge of shooting resin art pieces, so lots of glare. I think this tutorial gives you some wonderful tips for how to avoid glare. I was getting glare on some of the acrylic based pieces I was shooting. Happy photographing!