DIY Galaxy Shorts tutorial

Hi Everyone! :) This is my first blog post in nearly 2months, it has been crazy lately thus the MIA-ness.  To make up for the absence, I decided to make my first every little DIY tutorial: how to make your own galaxy printed shorts! This is purely a documented experiment, I'm not master at paint jobs but check if it works for you. It's sooo doable! :)

Materials:

Poster Paint/ Acrylic Paint (recommended)

Paintbrushes (round small brush, medium round, medium flat, large round)

Shorts/ Jeans

Fixative/ Sealant

Water to add to paint

Newspaper/ Any backing paper to protect your floor

Here's how:

1. Find a pair of old shorts or jeans and cut them up the way you want. Shorts with 

a nice deep jewel tone can be an advantage. If none, anything not too jet black will do.

 2. Pick a good color as base and apply. (All these are just extra paint from my visual technique class some 4 years ago! You don't really need too many.) Pick a deep tone like maroon, bottle green, red and the like for a mystique effect. My choice was purple. Apply evenly on shorts using your largest round brush.

3. Pick a secondary base. Apply it on selected areas, in huge amounts still using your large brush. I chose royal blue.

(If you're using poster color, remember to have more paint than water in your mixture or else it will look too pale when it dries)

 4. Sprinkle on some glittery gold dust so it sticks to your wet shorts.

 5. Pick one completely contrasting color to your base and apply using a medium round brush in swirling motion. Mine's apple green.

 6. Now that you have strong base, it's time to play! This is the fun part. Liven it up by playing with different strokes using bright colors: Yellow, orange, plus a little more neon green.

Strokes: swirl and arc around using round brush/ blot and spread using flat brush.
The more candid the stroke, the better.

hello yellow!

+orange (does a great job at brightening up)

 7.) Reapply gold dust and enhance it by applying yellow paint using the smallest brush (just pointilism or really tiny blots + smoke-like strokes). If you're using a dark color scheme, you may want to try silver and white for this.

8.) Using neon pink for extra quirk, make star like icons (just long x marks). This is understated technique because it drives home the point that these are galaxy shorts. Again, Use tiniest brush.

see lower right. make it darker, though.

9.) Repeat the same process for back portion. I chose to paint only one side. You can choose to paint the whole thing, or just the corners, or just the pockets-- be creative.

10.) Pay special attention to the side as they are often missed out because of the fold of your shorts.

Also the part where the stitches are being done to hold shorts together.

11.) Let dry and second coat/ third coat them as needed. Retouch as needed until you're satisfied. 

You may want them not too colorful for a grunge appeal. I prefer mine to be dreamy that's why I made sure all the colors are seen somehow.

12.) Spray on a fixative to keep colors locked in even after washing.

YOU'RE DONE :>

Finished Product:

Now go try it! :)

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This was one of the things I got busy with-- our summer youth camp. I headed venue design team for the third year now, and I'm so happy it turned out alright, props to my hardworking team of young people.  My frequent absence in all our production (due to work) was what inspired me to make the shorts. I needed an outlet. :))

I hope we're all ready for June! Missedyou guyssss :>

<3

Dawn