Keeping your paint in great condition is one of the best ways to care for graphic prints. When you begin making your prints with great paint, you can expect that your designs will last much longer. Whether you’re a commercial T-shirt printer or a DIY shirt customizer, here are some tips on how to keep your paint in great condition:
- Keep your paint container tightly sealed. Both water and oil-based paints would dry up and crack over time, rendering your paint useless. You can use some thinner to revive your paint, but the quality won’t be the same.
- Store your paint in a cool, dark place. Doing this will help protect the pigments better and would keep your paint looking vivid.
- Make sure to use clean brushes or scoopers when dipping into your paint. As much as possible, keeping your paint as clean as it originally was when you first got it will help you keep it in a much better state. The less foreign particles, the better for your paint.
After you follow these general tips on keeping your paint in great condition, you can definitely make more customized T-shirts using them!
Additional Tips on How to Care for Graphic Prints
Since you’re able to keep your paint usable over a long period of time, you can extend the functionality of your pain on your design by learning how to care for graphic prints. Follow these tips and you can keep your graphic prints looking new longer:
- Do not iron directly on the painted area. This is a huge NO for most graphic print shirts because the material will melt or get distorted from the heat. To remove creases from the space in between the painted parts, place a handkerchief or another thin layer of fabric before swiftly running the iron over your printed shirt. Another method to remove creases on your shirt is to iron the shirt inside out, focusing on the printed area first before turning it out again and ironing right side out. Set your iron at low when doing this to avoid too much heat on the paint which may lead to cracking.
- Sun-drying is great for shirts, but with graphic print shirts air drying is more advisable. Direct exposure to the sun may ruin the print.
- Use a small amount of gentle fabric conditioner to keep the fabric underneath the paint flexible and more accommodating to the paint on its surface.
- Avoid using strong detergents and bleach on graphic prints. They have harsher effects on the fabric which may make them brittle, resulting in having little for the paint to stick to. Also, using strong detergents may remove the paint from the surface of your shirt.
- Do not wring your graphic print shirts. This helps avoid over-stretching the fabric and cracking your paint in the process.
By following these tips, you’ll be able to maintain the quality of your paint and the graphic print shirts you use them on!