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© 2000 by Ron McIntyre. All Rights Reserved.
In this article I am going to give you some ideas on how to construct stencils from CorelDRAW, cut them out and apply them to a T-Shirt. Since I am a Kansas fellow and a K-State fan I have to get ready when my team becomes #1, maybe? I produced these stencils using CorelDRAW 9 and Corel TRACE 9.
One of the first things I needed was a form board to apply the to T-Shirt so I would be able to have something solid when I applied the paint. Also to use as a base so I could apply clamps and use as my (registration marks), so my stencils would line up in the same place every time. Aluminum yardsticks will work great, but you can use anything as long as they are straight. You can also design your own registration marks and do away with the clamps, but with this method you will not have to be as careful where you place your stencils, as they will have a repositionable Stencil Adhesive Spray on the back of them.
The form board was made from 1/2 inch plywood, but you can also use cardboard forms available from a local hobby store or cut your own. The board measures 27.5 inches wide by 24 inches high. The images at left and below show three basic set ups. At left shows small finishing nails through pre drilled 1/16-inch registration holes, and should be sharp enough to separate your material. Bottom left shows wood, Bottom right shows a two-foot square. Also it would be a good idea to make yourself a vector drawing of the form board you will use so you can see where your alignment will be. I used the one at bottom right, but would not use the one at left as it was only used to give different ideas.
Before we start on the construction, I will give you a list of the various things you may need. At left is a self-healing cutting board. In the middle is an X-acto knife, and two blades, #11 & #16. I prefer the #11 when cutting as it produces the best cut, so have plenty on hand. At right is the spray adhesive.
Below left are a variety of Stencil Brushes; You'll also need an 18 x 24 inch Quilting plastic template that used to cut the stencils. You will need three pieces, and you can find them at most hobby stores, WalMart or fabric shops. Below right is Delta Creamcoat Acrylic paint, also found at those locations. It is a good idea to have several multimedia brushes that are straight cut at the end of the brush numbers #2, #4, and #6, as you may need these to paint close to the edge of the template. This helps keep the paint from getting under the stencils.
If you do not want to use the plastic sheets, another cheaper way is to purchase plastic sheeting found in hardware stores. The clear sheet at 6 mils thick will work OK, but is more flimsy than the template plastic. It is easier to cut, but will be a lot harder to align overlays (more than one stencil) than the stiffer plastic template sheets. If you just have one stencil and no overlays then the clear plastic will work OK for one time use.
I have an airbrush and could have done the painting with it. But I thought the brush way was the best all-around method.
Since the design I produced uses the Kansas State Logo of the K-Kat, it was meant for my personal use only and was not intended for resale. So if you decide to reproduce this design it can only be for your own personal use. That is true of any sports logo unless you plan on paying for the licensing rights.
The finished stencils drawings are all 12 inches wide and will be based on that width, but you can use any size you wish. The three stencils are 14 inches wide by 16 inches high after printing and before cutting. I wanted to use two sheets of legal paper to print the patterns in landscape mode. After trimming only the bottom of page 1, put the two pages together and place on the plastic to cut. This way there will be no cutting of the paper pattern on the sides. Therefore you should cut your plastic to 14 x 16 inches. This is shown in the illustrations below. Also the inside part is 13.5 by 7.5 inches.
As there are several clipart images in the libraries Catalog, I based my design on one of them. This is shown at right.
Open a new drawing of 15 by 15 inches and enter the following guidelines shown at left. Click on snap to guidelines. Draw a horizontal Ellipse 12 by 7 inches and place in center of page, press P, then convert to curves. Then select your shaping tool and change the two symmetrical nodes A & B to curve cusp nodes. Rotate your Bezier control handles to the outside guidelines, producing a shape as shown below. Resize this curve to 12 x 7 inches and either export the object as a CMX file or move out of your drawing area. You will need this curve to align your text with.
Duplicate your finished curve and rotate it 90°. Duplicate this curve and with you aspect ratio unlocked, increase the size of the duplicated curve to 13.5 inches long to 8.5 inches wide. Select both curves and combine. Open up your shaping docker and select the Trim icon. With your vertical combined curves selected click on trim and select the horizontal curve. After the trim is complete, reselect your vertical curve and delete. Select Arrange | Break Apart. You now have a group of three objects. This is shown below.
Draw a horizontal rectangle and size it to 2.5 inches long and .375 inches wide. Duplicate this rectangle and align both center to center to objects A & B. Using these rectangles trim A first then go to Arrange | Break Apart, repeat this to object B. You now have a group of five objects. This completes the basic outline of the football. Group all of your objects and make sure your grouped objects are 12 x 7 inches. If not make them so and make sure you are still in center of page.
Since I needed to make the football look like it had stitches on the outside for my finished design, I was going to draw a rectangle and size it to .25 (1/4) inch high by .375 (3/8) inches wide. Using the Blend Effect, add 8 rectangles along a 4 inch path across the top of the football. This will be shown next.
With your five grouped objects in center of page go to Arrange | Lock Object. Go
to your guideline setup and remove all of your previous guidelines and enter
new ones at the coordinates as shown at right.
Using your Zoom tool, marquee select where your guidelines intersect your locked objects to about 500%. Then using Bezier tool, draw three points at A, B, C. Take your Shape tool and reproduce a curve as D. This is our new path for our 1/4 by 3/8-inch rectangle. You can also produce this curve by tracing the locked curve from A to C. Or use the curve from A to C by unlocking the center object and adding nodes at A & C then deleting the node at B. If you delete the node at B, it will change the shape of the curve and you will have to add it back and move your curve back to that node to retain your original shape. I chose this method, as I did not want to change the shape of my locked objects nor take the chance of moving it by accident. This is shown at left.
Next draw your rectangle of 1/4 by 3/8-inches and duplicate it and move it to B. Select your rectangle A and on your Property Bar enter 19° and apply. Select your rectangle B and enter -19° and click apply. Move both of the rectangles to the center of your guidelines. Make sure Snap to Guidelines is enabled. Select either the A or B rectangle and go to Arrange | Align | Distribute and check the horizontal center. Click to apply. This is shown at right and below.
With both the rectangles selected, open the Blend Docker or use the Interactive Blend Tool. Enter 6 steps and click apply. Next select the New Path Icon, the one on the far right. When the arrow appears, select the new path curve you created and click on Apply (A). The 8 objects are now aligned as in B. Select Arrange | Separate | Ungroup All. Delete the new path curve and marquee select the 8 objects, then group. Give them a fill of black (C). This completes the alignment of the simulated stitches. Leave them in the drawing area as we are going to add them to the outline of the football.
Select the 5 locked objects and choose Arrange | Unlock All Objects. Group these objects then select the Pen Tool and enter an outline of .1562 (5/32) inch, black and click Apply. Move the simulated stitches into the outline to the height you prefer above the football, then Group. Give the football a fill of white. This is shown at right and below.
Select the grouped black and white objects and go to Export on your Standard Toolbar. When the box opens put a check mark in selected only and give it a name such as Football.cpt, then click on Export to save to your hard drive. This is shown at right. You are now done with the 15 x 15 inch drawing.
Open Corel TRACE 9 and open your Football.cpt. When the file opens enter on the Standard Toolbar a view of 12%. Go to Image | Mode | Black and White and convert the CPT file to a black and white image. Then go to Trace by Advanced Outline and click Apply. Your Trace results should show a group of ten objects. Go to File and Save Trace results as Football.cmx. You are now done with Corel TRACE 9.
Although you can use the Contour effect to produce a similar outline and results and then combine the simulated stitches, I chose the Trace method in this example.
Open up a new drawing of 18 x 18 inches and draw a rectangle of 14 x 16 inches, press P to center the rectangle on the page. Import your Football.cmx file you made from Corel TRACE, and also center to page. The 14 x 16 inch rectangle is your stencil background and everything done in this rectangle will have to be grouped to this rectangle. After we make one stencil pattern we move it out of the drawing area and make the next one, and so on. Then we can put them all back together again and make sure they all lined up before going on to the Intersection and then print. In this example you will see as we go along.
After you import the trace into your drawing, you will notice it is not 12 x 7 inches as we added the stitches. Make it 12 x 7 inches. Next, import the file with the curve you are going to use for the alignment of your text, and align these two objects center to center. It should be similar to B in the image at right. Although you could use the one in A, the football is not 12 x 7 inches as is the curve and leaves you open to not getting the alignment correct. If you used one football that was not 12 x 7 and one that was, things will not line up and will leave you wondering where you made your mistake. This may sound confusing, and it is at this point, but should become clear later. Duplicate your 12 x 7 inch football 3 times (one for safe keeping) and move out of your drawing area, and leave the curve in center of page as we are going to input the text and align to this curve.
This is where if you are fan of a different team, you can enter you own lettering and logo.
In the drawing, the font that I used is called Zapf Chan Bd BT, Point size 180, and will be based on this font. At left, I typed in K-State at 180 (A). At (B) I changed the size to 12 inches long to 1.5 inches high. At (C) I fit the text to path, then deleted the curve. At (D) I resized the text to 12 inches long and retained the width. Move (D) out of your drawing area for now. Also it is a good idea to duplicate your curve several times as you will use it more than once.
For a good explanation of fitting text to path read Foster Coburn's article, Fitting Text to a Path.
In the image at right, I typed in Football at 180 (A), and changed the size to 12 inches long by 1.5 inches high. At (B) I added guidelines at 0 and 15, and using the Shape tool dragged it from 0 to 15 inches (snap to guidelines enabled). Then I changed the size again to 12 inches long retaining the width (C). At (D) I fit the text to path. At (E) I again changed the size to 12 inches long, retaining the width. You can now delete the curve as you are finished with it.
Whichever text you use and after putting it on the path and resizing, you may have to tweak your text as I did by rotating the text to a level position.
You can now select the traced image and center it to center of page by pressing press P. Align the text so you have space above and below the football, mine was 1/2 (.5). Also align the text to center of football. All of the text and the football should be 12 inches long.
After you have aligned the text to your satisfaction, group all of your objects and move them 1 inch below the 14 x 16 inch rectangle. This is the final position. Also make sure it is aligned to the vertical center of the 14 x 16 inch rectangle. Any movement from this position will result in misalignment of the stencils. This is shown at right.
At this point it is a good idea to ungroup your objects and tab select until you find the 10 grouped objects of the football. Open the Transformation Docker and select the position icon, relative position unchecked and center object handle checked. Write this position down. If you are making this design then it should be H 9, V 10.4875 inches. This is very important as you will be deleting the inside outline of the football and leaving the outside only in the first stencil pattern.
Since all of the objects are grouped, tab select and ungroup. Do not use ungroup all. Tab select until K-State (enter no fill black outline .003). Tab select until "football" text (enter no fill black outline .003). Tab select until you arrive at the ten grouped objects, ungroup. Tab select and delete the inside objects, leaving a solid black football. All of this is shown at left.
Now tab select each solid black object and enter no fill and a black outline of .003. Marquee select the 14 x 16 rectangle and all of your objects then group them. Duplicate this set of grouped objects and move it out of your drawing area. Also this would be a good time to save. This is the finish of the first stencil pattern before printing. It is shown at right.
After you have duplicated the objects and moved them out of the way, select the objects again and delete the football outside outline. Now select one of the duplicated footballs and enter the horizontal and vertical positions in the Transformation Docker from the ones you wrote down. Click apply to again center the football where you just deleted the outside outline. We are now going to delete the outside outline leaving the inside only. Confusing?
You can leave the text in your second stencil if you prefer to have some orientation or you can delete the text. If you leave them in, make sure you lock the objects. The reason is when we delete the outside, the inside has a fill of white, but no outline as yet.
When you have the duplicated football in place, tab select and ungroup it. Since the inside has a fill of white and no outline it will be hard to tab select and remember what object you are giving an outline. Also if you select the inside by clicking on it, you take the chance of moving it. So take your mouse or pen (hope you have one) and select each black object and delete it. This leaves you with an invisible set of objects. Marquee select these objects and give them an outline of black .003 and no fill. Your second finished stencil is shown at left. Duplicate the rectangle and objects as you did in the first stencil, save, and move them out of your drawing area.
Since I have a vector drawing for my personal use of the K-Kat, I imported this object into the drawing and sized it to 5.5 inches long by 4 inches high. I aligned these objects by hand to my satisfaction inside the center object of the football that was left after we duplicated and moved the finished one. Since I had my objects in place I deleted the inside outline leaving the K-Kat and #1 in place. Duplicate this set of objects, and save as we did in the first two stencils. This is shown at right. This completes the three stencil patterns before intersection and printing.
To check our work and make sure everything is in place as it is supposed to
be before we continue, select each grouped set of objects and press P to
center of page. They should all arrive and show the outside, inside and K-Kat
all in the correct positions. This is shown at left. If they do not, then
somewhere a mistake in alignment has been made. One of the things is that
the Trace has a group of ten objects and if they are ungrouped separately
and then grouped they will have different centers and will not line up by
alignment of center to center and you will have to do it by eyesite only.
Let's hope all went well.
Open a new drawing of Legal Size paper in Landscape mode, 14 inches long by 8.5 inches wide. This is where the intersected objects will be sent, so keep it in waiting.
We have a drawing of 18 x 18 already open where the duplicated stencil patterns reside after saving. This is where we will continue. Since the grouped stencil patterns are 14 x 16 inches, draw another rectangle of 14 x 16 inches and press P to center to page. This is the container that we will use for our PowerClip. Using the Graph Paper tool, draw a graph 1 row, 2 columns 13.5 inches long by 15 inches high, press P to center to page and ungroup the objects. These are the parts that we are going to use to intersect the drawn stencil patterns. Select your first stencil pattern, the ones with the letters and go to Effects | PowerClip | Place Inside Container. When the arrow appears, click on your container. Open up the Shaping Docker and leave both Source and Target Object checked. Tab select until you arrive at the top 13.5 inch rectangle. When it is selected, click on Intersect with. When the intersection is complete press P to center of page and go to the Standard Toolbar and Cut or press CTRL + X. Go to the drawing in waiting, page 1 and on the Standard Toolbar, paste, or press CTRL + V. Go to page 2 and then back to your intersection and repeat the process for the second page. An example is shown at right.
After you cut and paste your second page and are back in your intersect page, then Tab select until you arrive at the container. When it is selected, go to Effects | PowerClip | Extract Contents and press Delete. This will leave an empty container. Select your second stencil pattern to intersect and repeat the process for the next two intersections. Repeat the process for the last stencil pattern. You are now done with your 18 x 18 inch drawing and intersection.
Now that you have all six intersections in the printing drawing, just print and trim off only the bottom of pages 1, 3, and 5. Then assemble the pages together. I again used an Avery Glue Stick #00166 to glue the pages together.
Align the pattern and plastic stencil material together at the top and inside edge, then put no less than 4 pieces of masking tape to the material. An illustration and instructions is shown at the right. Do this to all three patterns. You are now ready to cut the stencils out.
When cutting out your stencils, hold your knife as a pencil and make your cuts smoothly and continuously. Cut towards yourself and do not lift the knife blade more than necessary. Move your material rather than your knife.
If you are following this example then the letters shown below and marked in red will have to be added back into your stencil before painting, so be careful when cutting these out.
After you have cut out your stencils, then you can remove the paper from the plastic and clean the adhesive spray from the stencil. Cheap charcoal lighter fluid will work fine. Then wash with hot soapy water and dry. You will be applying new spray to the back of the stencil and applying it to the shirt. An example of stencil #1 cut out is shown at right.
Although I have cut out stencils before and have applied these to metal, this is also my first attempt at applying to a T-Shirt. So if you are a beginner like myself and I have done it, so can you. I will point out some of my mistakes so you won't repeat them.
If you are making a stencil that requires only one stencil then you will be fine. If more than one, as in the example, here are a few pointers.
As I used a two-foot square and clamps to get my alignment, this method worked very well. I then applied my stencil spray to my first stencil, let dry, and applied to shirt, and then painted. All worked well until I removed my stencil after painting. When I removed the stencil it stretched the shirt out of shape and was not in the same place. Thus, I had a very hard time aligning my second stencil up with the first.
In the illustration shown at right are two methods to help in the alignment of the second and third stencils. With no adhesive on your stencils, align stencil to shirt where you want it. Mine was two inches below the collar of the shirt and centered. Align your square to your stencil, then add masking tape under and half way back from your square and draw a pencil line where your square will be, and clamp down. Now when you remove your first stencil and it stretches you can loosen the clamps and pull the shirt back to the lines, then tighten for the second and third stencils.
The second method, along with the first, is to turn your shirt inside out and iron freezer paper to the area that is going to be used for your stencils. Freezer paper has a wax finish on one side and must be placed to the shirt. The wax adheres to the shirt and keeps that area from stretching, and can be removed after finishing the shirt. If you use the freezer paper method, you won't have to use masking tape if you don't want to as the square will hold all in place, and the paper will hold you area in place.
After I had everything in place and clamped down, I placed my second stencil (the inside of football) and drew a pencil outline of that stencil on the shirt. I then applied stencil spray to the back of stencil #1 and let dry. A simulated illustration is shown at left.
I applied stencil spray to #1 and using Delta Creamcoat Purple #0215 painted the letters. I then painted the outline of the football up to and beyond my pencil outline about 1/8 inch. I let dry about 30 minuets and removed stencil #1. After about two hours I then applied stencil #2 and made sure everything lined up. I then applied #2 as I did #1 and using Delta Creamcoat White, #02505 painted the inside of the football. I let this dry and then applied a second coat to cover up the purple that I had painted beyond the outline. The other method to get the purple outline is to apply stencil #1 and paint the whole football white, then after the paint has dried apply the five parts that was cut from stencil #2 and incorporate them into stencil #1 and paint the purple over the white to produce the outline. The reason I chose the first method was so you would not have to align five separate parts as you did the inside of the letters.
Hint: To apply those little parts of the letters, spray the end of a brush with your spray, pick up and then spray the back and then apply to shirt. Also don't forget that little part from the #, as you will need it in the last stencil.
The second mistake I found out by being a first timer was when I applied stencil #2 is that the paint is not flat as the shirt is, and has a rough texture. Even though I had stencil spray on the stencil, paint wanted to get under the edges of the stencil. So when you get to this point paint on the white very carefully near the edges with a fine art brush. This also applies to the third stencil. Most likely you will have to touch up all of the edges when you are finished as I did with a #2 (1/4 inch) Multi-Media brush.
I have included three digital photos of all three from beginning to end to show you a first timer can do it and get good results.
Remember the K-State Logo is a copyrighted logo and cannot be used other than for your own personal use. That is to say you cannot make several of these and sell them to your buddies, as then you would have violated copyright laws. That goes with all the logos, such as the KU logo of the Jayhawks.
As I had so much fun in making the stencils using CorelDRAW and then applying my newly acquired painting skills (I have a lot to learn), I decided to make one more shirt to show my Ham Radio buddies that by using clip art from the Libraries catalog there is all kinds of things you can come up with.
The photo below shows the shirt and it only required one stencil to produce.
CD-ROM Labels: Design, Cut, & Install From Glossy Photo Paper · Postcards, QSL Cards, Books and the Duplexing Wizard · Use CorelDRAW to Produce Scrolling Text or Graphics From Screen Recording Software · Creating a Cross Stitch Pattern from an Original Scan · Making Those Fancy License Plates · Creating Stencils To Paint On T-Shirts · Constructing Isometric Grid Paper, A Computer Aid · Making a Full Sized Pattern From a Digital Photo · Fabricate Your Own Copper Arrows, Part I · Fabricate Your Own Copper Arrows, Part II
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