sweet, wrinkle-free inspiration

ArtRageous is next weekend and this year's theme is "Sweet Inspiration." Judging by the artwork and marketing materials, I am assuming it's so named because "Willy Wonka" is copyrighted.

I am painting a shirt and a pair of jeans to go with the theme and to evoke the same sort of swirly whimsy of the invitation and posters. Here are a couple of shots I took with the iPhone. On the left, just after painting while the gel is still wet; to the right, as it dries.


I screwed up the paints and confused the primary and accent colors. The primary design was to be bold and accented with subtle sparkles (only a gay man could think that sparkles are subtle, but hey. Josh will back me up on this.)

So while it looked bold wet, it dried into something cool looking, but quiet. And in shadow or low light, is nearly invisible. I am trying to fix this by drawing over it with the primary paint, but the freehand brush strokes are much more smooth than my deliberate lines. I am afraid it's going to be too janky to wear and I'll have to make another one. The first draft looked so nice people thought I bought it. The edited version looks a little too "crafty."

Then again, it's a bunch of boozers on buses so how much should I care?

Update: Pants look good. Loud, but good. And as Kevin noted, it's costume wardrobe, so go big over quiet. I am wishing I had left the first draft shirt alone and saved it for going out here and just made an all-new costume shirt. Meh.