You can order your very own New Zealand nature t-shirts from our brand new exhibition at Brighton Gallery, open until January 8th. All works, t-shirts & original prints, are designed & printed in New Brighton. To order contact: www.surfaceactive.digitees.co.nz/contact
Looking for the perfect way to show your love for your favourite native animal? Order your kiwi t-shirt today. T-shirts are available in a variety of colours and styles for adults and kids, making it easy to find the right one for you.
A gallery of The New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company wildlife art prints of Chrissie Terpstra and Shaun Waugh.
Since Chrissie and I were a kids we have been enthusiasts of the natural world and as design pARTners since 1985 our New Zealand nature wildlife art designs are an expression of this.
I finished four years of study in Graphic Design at Auckland Technical Institute in 1983. After a five year career as an advertising art director in Auckland, Christchurch, Hong Kong and Reykjavik I was equipped through illustration, graphic design, drawing and painting to achieve our aim of creating a variety of stimulating visual images that originate from the experiences and knowledge of the natural world that Chrissie and I bring to our collaborations. We create wildlife art of native birds, reptiles, mammals, insects, trees, plants and landscapes at locations all over New Zealand that I photograph, and we research the image libraries of renowned New Zealand wildlife photographers in search of reference for iconic imagery.
The Surface Active New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company range of t-shirt designs has been developed since the year 1986 when we first started screenprinting on the kitchen table in our flat, with frequent updates of new designs between 1988 to the present. We display our latest limited edition wildlife art prints using specialist room mock-up software. Please revisit every few weeks, I’m sure there will be some fresh images for you to look at. As full-time professionals 1988–2003 Chrissie and I designed over 100 original wildlife art designs with New Zealand, Antarctica and African “big five” megafauna themes. Since 2003 we have continued creating new designs and during lockdown 2020 and 2021 we created a new design every few weeks.
Surface Active design pARTners Chrissie Terpstra and Shaun Waugh welcome orders to reproduce fine art prints from our collection of wildlife artworks, linked here. We provide archival/fine art quality reproduction prints of our works—perfect for your walls or as a gift.
We’re excited to announce our two online retail stores, the Surface Active global store and the brand new New Zealand-based store! To celebrate this significant stage in the development of our clothing brand we are rewarding our customers with a discount offer.
This is the first retrospective dedicated to the works of the design pARTners behind Surface Active—The New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company—who mined their love of nature and of home, wonderful beautiful New Zealand. Global store: Use Code “PERFEC” for 5% off. New Zealand store: Sale price, 10% discount store wide.
RETROSPECTIVE: A Retrospective Exhibition of Surface Active—The New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company T-shirts 1986–2021 by design pARTners Chrissie Terpstra and Shaun Waugh.
Retrospective: The New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company—Surface Active, 1986–2021
South Brighton, Christchurch, November 2021
Dear Surface Dweller, We’re excited to announce our two new online retail stores, the Surface Active <a href=”https://www.surfaceactive.nz/?pr=PERFEC”>global store and the <a href=”http://surfaceactive.digitees.co.nz/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>New Zealand-based store! We are celebrating this step forward in the development of our clothing brand with a discount offer.🛍 NZ-based store: 10% discount, storewide. 🛍 Global store: Use code: “PERFEC” for 5% off, storewide.
Surface Active—The New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company, well made in New Zealand since 1986.
Back in 1986, as an illustrative graphic designer; I was a design pARTner with Chrissie Terpstra in our ‘auto printmaking’ garment screenprinting studio and clothing brand, Surface Active Artwear. We learned over the next 17 years together aboard the good ship Free Enterprise, in what began as a shared hobby screenprinting on the kitchen table, that hand-pulled screenprinting is the medium of the hard labouring graphic artist. From the drawing board, to the darkroom, to the shirtfront with squeegee in hand, to folding great drifts of cotton, employing up to four people, manning our stalls at the weekend Christchurch Arts Centre Market, The Waiheke Island market and The Great New Zealand Craftshows from Cape Reinga to Bluff… busy, busy, busy.
Overview
Of course we were big fans of the humble t-shirt. By the mid 1980s they had become hot promotional items, garments on the outskirts of fashion, and a relatively new medium for the Graphic Designer’s art. What had for a long time been considered a poor medium for Graphic Design grew to an almost essential one. All you have to do is walk down the street anywhere in the world since the early 80s to see what a ubiquitous promotional vehicle they have become. Back in the day, if you mailed out 100 potential clients a direct mail brochure perhaps 200 people will see it. But mail out, or better yet, sell 100 T-shirts, and assuming they’re at all decent looking, you launch 100 walking billboards.
‘Paua Aotearoa’, adults and kids T-shirt, four colour print on navy and black fabric. Placement print; four colour front, a complementary small ‘blended’ one colour print on back. Piecework; adult’s garment kowhaiwhai print on sleeves.
The trend over the past several decades has been to embrace more casual clothing, to the point of stone-washed, distressed—clothing that appears to have more life experience than the youth who wears it—though, isn’t it ironic (and oh-so bourgeois,) that all of this has in no way meant this sort of hip clothing has become less expensive or stylish. I recall my eyes watering the time I picked up a pair of name brand shotgun blasted and ripped men’s jeans in 2004, NZD$450 for the look of just having been assaulted in an alley! That’s fairly interesting. Brand awareness, including personal brand awareness has been part of this trend—to such an extent that people want, or are at least willing to flaunt, the name of the brand or designer of their shoes, jeans, and bags on the items in question. In short clothing manufacturers made their products promotional vehicles for themselves.
Surface Active | The New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company.
‘Ocean – New Zealand’ one colour children’s T-shirt print on navy blue and jade green fabric. Placement; One colour front and back. ‘Puff’ printed emboss effect ink.
‘Ocean – New Zealand’ and ‘Seashore – New Zealand’ one colour children’s T-shirt prints on navy blue and jade green fabric. Placement; One colour front and back. ‘Puff’ printed emboss effect ink.
Saltwater crayfish – koura. Charcoal and ink on coquille board drawing.
‘Forest floor – New Zealand’ one colour children’s T-shirt print on unbleached cotton and dark green fabric. Placement; One colour front and back. ‘Puff’ printed emboss effect ink.
Chrissie models ‘Kiwi – New Zealand’ the first of our mixed digital and drawing board graphics. ‘Puff’ printed emboss effect ink.
‘Sandy shore’ one colour garment print on grey marle fabric. Placement; front and back, with a smaller complimentary designalong the hemline on the back.
‘Sandy shore’ one colour garment print on unbleached cotton fabric. Placement: front and back, with a smaller complimentary design along the hemline on the back.
‘Taniwha Aotearoa – Maori rock art New Zealand. One colour T-shirt print on black fabric. Placement; larger graphic on front complementary smaller graphic back. Front print metallic gold manual colour blend.
‘Taniwha Aotearoa – Maori rock art New Zealand. One colour long sleeve T-shirt print on black fabric. Placement; larger graphic on front complementary smaller graphic back. Front print metallic gold manual colour blend.
‘Treefern New Zealand’ T-shirt, two colour print on dark green fabric. Printed front and sleeve of garment.
‘Tapa NZ’ children’s T-shirt on unbleached cotton fabric. 2 colours placed front, back and sleeves.
‘Tapa NZ’ two colour T-shirt on unbleached cotton fabric. Placement; 2 colours placed front, back and sleeves.
‘Light of the Pacific – Nuclear-free New Zealand’ T-Shirt. Two colour print on navy and unbleached cotton fabric. Placement; Two colour front, small complementary one colour back, ssleeves printed one colour ‘sharkstooth’ woodcut as piecework.
‘Light of the Pacific – Nuclear-free New Zealand’ T-Shirt. Two colour print on navy and unbleached cotton fabric. Placement; Two colour front, small complementary one colour back, sleeves printed one colour ‘sharkstooth’ woodcut as piecework.
‘Light of the Pacific – Nuclear-free New Zealand’ T-Shirt. Two colour print on unbleached cotton fabric. Placement; Two colour front, small complementary one colour back, sleeves printed one colour ‘sharkstooth’ woodcut as piecework.
Surface Active catalogue of graphic T-shirt designs, 1994–95. Concertina fold “paper dolls” presentation concept. Vivid Rod Morris kea plumage detail cover graphic.
‘Adelie Penguins, Antarctica’ adult’s and children’s two colour T-shirt print on white fabric. Placement; Complementary graphics, two colours front and back.
‘Pukeko New Zealand’ four colour T-shirt print on navy blue fabric. Placement; 4 colours front with small complementary 3 colour print on the back.
‘Pukeko New Zealand’ four colour children’s T-shirt print on navy blue fabric. Placement; 4 colours front with small complementary 3 colour print on the back.
‘Adelie Penguins, Antarctica’ adult’s and children’s two colour T-shirt print on white fabric. Placement; Complementary graphics. two colours front and back.
Beautiful type makes a statement of its own; it adds elegance and attitude to my words; The tuatara is a two colour “pen & ink” wildlife art design printed using three dimensional “puff” inks.
‘Tuatara – Living fossil map’ two colour T-shirt print on black fabric using opaque and three dimensional puff inks.
‘Paua Aotearoa’ T-shirt, four colour print on black fabric. Placement; four colour front, complementary small one colour graphic on back. Piecework kowhaiwhai print on sleeves.
‘Paua Aotearoa’, adults and kids T-shirt, four colour print on navy and black fabric. Adult garment a four colour print. Placement; four colour front, one complementary small one colour print on back. Piecework kowhaiwhai print on sleeves.
‘Paua Aotearoa’ T-shirt, four colour print on black fabric. Placement; four colour front, complementary small one colour graphic on back. Piecework kowhaiwhai print on sleeves. Model: Shaun.
‘Paua Aotearoa’, adults and kids T-shirt, four colour print on navy and black fabric. Adult garment a four colour print. Placement; four colour front, one complementary small one colour print on back. Piecework kowhaiwhai print on sleeves.
Weta long sleeve T-shirt on oatmeal marle fabric. Six colour print. Placement; piecework, front, back and sleeve.
‘Weta – New Zealand’ T-shirt, adults and kids, on oatmeal and grey marle fabric. Adult garment a six colour print. Placement; piecework, front, back and sleeve.
‘Weta – New Zealand’ six colour print T-shirt on light brown marle fabric. Placement; Six colour print as piecework, front, back and sleeve.
‘Weta – New Zealand’ T-shirt, adults and kids, on oatmeal and grey marle fabric. Adult garment a six colour print. Placement; piecework, front, back and sleeve.
Surface Active T-shirt swingtag front.
Surface Active T-shirt swingtag back.
Surface Active ‘Kiwi Space Shuttle’ T-shirt, mixed media, digital illustration.
‘Kiwi Space Shuttle’ print detail.
‘Sperm Whale – Kaikoura New Zealand’ T-shirt, five colour print on white or dark blue-green fabric. Placement; five colour print back, complementary small one colour graphic on front.
Some screen printed art began as woodcuts.
Surface Active well made in New Zealand t-shirt neck label.
‘Spotted Shags – New Zealand’ T-shirt, seven colour print on grey marle fabric. Placement; seven colour front, one colour woodcut around hem front and back.
‘Spotted Shags – New Zealand’ T-shirt, seven colour print on navy blue fabric. Placement; seven colour front, one colour woodcut around hem front and back.
‘Jewelled Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on dark green fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour kowhaiwhai print front and back around hem.
‘Jewelled Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on dark green fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, oone colour kowhaiwhai print front and back around hem.
‘Kea – New Zealand’ T-shirt, eight colour print on white fabric. Placement; eight colour front.
‘Harlequin Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on charcoal marle fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour woodcut print front and back around hem.
‘Harlequin Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on light-brown marle fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour woodcut print front and back around hem.
‘Harlequin Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on charcoal marle fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour woodcut print front and back around hem.
‘Hoiho – New Zealand’ T-shirt, eight colour print on deep violet fabric. Placement; eight colour front, one colour woodcut around hem front and back.
‘Common dolphin – New Zealand’ T-shirt, eight colour print on white fabric. Placement; eight colour front, one colour kowhaiwhai around the hem front and back.
Surface Active wildlife collage design, step and repeat one colour fabric print on custom bedding set.
Surface Active wildlife collage design fabric print as wallpaper.
Surface Active T-shirts celebrate New Zealand’s unique assets
Surface Active ‘Kiwi Space Shuttle’ tee, mixed media, digital illustration.
Promotional teeshirts take this walking billboard concept one step further by being clothing that promotes products, services, cultural and ideological views in such a way that the wearer is willing to be identified—whether through a sense of aesthetics, humour, social responsibility, irreverence, or loyalty to a watering hole, cultural institution, environmental organisation or charity. People are willing to wear someone else’s message because they feel it says something about themselves—which is the essence of fashion. Initially our T-shirts were retailed by us at our stall at the Christchurch Arts Centre Market, also by direct mail to the list we collected, and at Great New Zealand Craftshow events nationwide. We grew to be wholesalers to environmental organisations such as Greenpeace and the Maruia Society, for inclusion particularly in their annual pre-Xmas direct mail catalogue campaigns and sold in their retail stores. As design pARTners in the visual arts Chrissie and I applied our teeshirt design skills to everything from promoting small businesses and one-time events, to our wildlife art, Kiwiana and nuclear free collections. We wholesaled to the likes of Wild Places and The Epicentre, Christchurch’s two ecostores, and as mentioned, to Greenpeace and the Maruia Society. Our market developed to include DoC visitor centres and similar conservation themed retail outlets in National Parks and in the brand new, prestigious Te Papa store in Wellington. As our business and reputation grew we were commissioned by tourist attractions like the International Antarctic Centre, Orana Park and certain Doc conservancies to design and produce custom ranges of adult and children’s shirts.
The 2021 digital design collection in our two online retail stores, that I have been developing since 2008, is based on the archive of our ‘analogue’ and computer aided Surface Active New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company range produced 1986–2004.
In terms of our T-shirt design itself, it evolved from straightforward application of flat shape illustrations like the Dolphins Leaping design, handcut from Rubylith, to hand separated multicolour drawings, cartoon images, to symbols or logos, all screenprinted by Chrissie and I after work on the kitchen table in our flat in 1986. In the beginning sometimes these prints were devised to be handpainted to finish, or in the late 90s to approaches that treat the shirt as a canvas, involving printing the garments as piecework prior to being stitched up by local seamstresses. Whereas our early designs simply applied graphics to the front of the shirt, our designs developed into appearing on the front and back, wrap around, and encircling the hems and sleeves. Treating the T-shirts as the design of a piece of clothing in the round. We also developed from printing white and light coloured shirts to custom batch dying them in vivid dark hues and speciality, more technically challenging and laborious “dark shirt” printing. The Direct-to-garment digital printing that enables the one-off printing of the Surface Active range of designs today, that is a whole ‘nother ball of wool. In a nutshell it is a process of printing on textiles using specialised water-based inks and inkjet technology whereby the prints form a very strong bond between the garment fibres and the pigmented inks. What follows is a historical record of Surface Active’s methodology.
The mechanics of hand-screen printing fabric do not change
Final heat cure of the print on the pallet, stripping the finished Tees off and reloading the next run of 10. This process start to finish took two people labouring hard-out for 45 minutes. A lunch break from this hard labour on your feet the whole time was essential, sit-down lunches at the table which amazing Chrissie Terpstra cooked for our crew of Screen Gems every single day! Morning and afternoon coffee/tea and snacks were delivered and consumed on the fly.
When you are printing on cotton fabric with seams you cannot get the kind of fine detail you can printing on paper. The fabric absorbs the inks or dyes and the colour spreads through the fibres. With our layered or hand-separated multicolour designs the colour is laid down in areas with the hand-pulled process, with “flash-curing” of the print between colour passes, in some cases up to 10 passes to print one garment one colour at a time.
Fabric colour and the issue of “hand” or feel of the fabric printing inks
‘Jewel Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on dark green fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour kowhaiwhai print front and back around hem.
The reason for selecting water based inks and dyes as the better printing option, other than avoiding toxic (and highly hazardous) solvents that are used for printing “Plastisol” inks, is that of the “hand” or feel of the ink on the garment. Water-based inks have a nicer feel to them but they are more difficult to work with as they easily cure, “dry in” or clog the stencil especially in peak demand hot summer weather, rendering it useless and in need of remaking. Waterbased dyes have no “hand” to them as such as the screenprint literally dyes the light coloured fabric.
Custom designed and built in-line printing workshop
We developed a custom in-line sequential printing methodology, rather than rotary print methodology in our back-shed “sheltered workshop” to successfully overcome the drying-in drawback of waterbased printing dyes and acrylic Supercover inks. It was achieved by way of additional manual labour and an innovative use of our own design of screen holding humidifier boxes for keeping the ink and screens moist between print runs.
High cover ink system
‘Harlequin Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on charcoal marle fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour woodcut print front and back around hem.
If you want to lay down a light colour on a dark shirt you have to use acrylic Super-cover inks, in some cases laying down two light coats to best build opacity while preserving detail. Flash curing in between is the only way ensure print quality is maintained throughout the print run. If your dark shirt design has a lot of solid light ink coverage you end up making something that has the feel of a bullet-proof vest when you’re wearing it. We avoided this by planning our designs to combine both ink and dye passes, colours darker than the fabric colour are dyes, lighter ones are super-opaque acrylics, all required flash curing between. The other huge benefit with water-based inks, aside from wash-up with water, and their “thinners” being water, is that the finished garment once flashed off to the point of being touch dry is given a final cure in just 20 minutes in a domestic tumble dryer rather than a 6m long high-tech curing oven.
Surface Active wildlife collage design, step and repeat one colour fabric print on custom bedding set.
Optimising the illustration workflow for easy printing and graphic quality
‘Ocean – New Zealand’ one colour children’s T-shirt print on navy blue and jade green fabric. Placement; One colour front and back. ‘Puff’ printed emboss effect ink.
One of our specialities is one colour “puff printed” designs, the so called puff inks contract when cured and so draw up the fabric surface. This has a tremendous tactile and visual effect on single colour dark shirt prints such as the Tuatara and children’s Ocean and Forest floor designs. I developed a variation of drawing wildlife art based on classic zoology methods, using mixed media, charcoal pencil with pen and ink on coquille board to achieve a crisp “line and tone” effect from one colour “line” images.
Regarding the gallery and our T-shirt models
As with other portfolios on the site Archive the over 40 designs included here are collected from the period between 1988–2002 of our Surface Active printed garment editions.
‘Weta – New Zealand’ T-shirt, adults and kids, all-over printed on oatmeal and grey marle fabric. Adult garment a six colour print. High quality custom, workmanship. Cut and sew assembly. Products made in Christchurch, New Zealand, 1999–2002.
A shout-out must go to our T-shirt models from back-in-the-day, the kids are all 20-or-30-something now at time of writing. Our compliments and lasting gratitude are also due to their T-shirt modelling parents, our friends. SurfaceActive employed most of them as our highly-trusted sales crew at our stall at the Christchurch Arts Centre Market, come rain or shine, year-round 1988–2002. CreditsDesign and Art Direction: Design pARTners, Chrissie Terpstra and Shaun Waugh Graphic designer, illustrator, print production/‘pre-press’: Shaun Waugh Hand-pulled screen printing: Surface Active: Chrissie Terpstra and the Surface Active “screen gems” crew
Feel like a walk in the forest downunder? It’s hard to avoid the familiar sight of tree ferns, or punga, no matter where you go in New Zealand. Cool and bushy, this attractively umbrellarific all-over printed t-shirt design is repeated on the shirt back. Available in adult sizes XS–3XL on forest green or black shirts.
Celebrate your love for nature and wildlife with this art print featuring New Zealand’s largest native insect, the weta. Don’t say “oooh!”, say “aaah!” for this is one of the best-looking weta you’ll ever see. The recently rediscovered Bluff weta can be found in scree and on rocky bluffs at Mt Somers in North Canterbury, and all over this t-shirt.
Designed by Chrissie and I and printed in the USA and Europe. Available as an ‘all-over’ teeshirt design for adults, and a two-sided placement print design version for adults and kids.
All purchases storewide made using this link to the weta design will receive a 5% discount that is applied automatically at checkout. Promo code: “PERFEC”.
For our New Zealand customers we have established this Digitees Surface Active store so your weta t-shirts can be printed in New Zealand, with a fast turnaround, shipping in 3–5 days + courier. Sale price: The NZ-based store prices are 10% discounted storewide.
Designed by Chrissie and I and printed in the USA and Europe. My new absolute fav dolphin watercolour ‘all-over’ teeshirt print. All purchases made using this link to the global store will receive a 5% discount, use promo code: “PERFEC”.
Or shop at our New Zealand-based store: Sale price, the price of all the goods in the NZ store are 10% discounted.
The colourful print of four common dolphins leaping is brought to life with a watercolour splash. Common dolphins (Delphinus delphus) are seen in Kaikoura mainly in the summer time. Kaikoura is one of the best places in New Zealand to view marine wildlife and rated as one of the best in the world to swim with dolphins.
Storewide 10% off, shop here, use promo code “ARTYKIWI.”
This t-shirt wildlife art print features a trio of Banks Peninsula spotted shags during breeding season, when nature gets heavy-handed with blue-green makeup and punk hair-dos. It is a multimedia design featuring a woodcut portrait of the birds and an airbrushed sky.
With their distinctive spotted feathers, bright blue-green colouring and tufted crests, these spotted shags/parekareka are thinking of romance (and fish.) What else does a shag do in it’s pre-nuptial plumage?
Shop for the double-sided version here with the big print on the back, and the single-sided version here with the big print on the front.
Just for you a Paua Pacific t-shirt 10% off link is here, use promo code “ARTYKIWI.”
These black and navy tees with the double-sided Paua Pacific print are perfect for the summer. For a 10% discount use the promo code “ARTYKIWI” here:
Cool, clean Pacific waters produce the bright iridescent colours of the paua shell—a watery treasure of New Zealand to keep you cool.
This art print is a composite of a charcoal drawing and hand-separated paua shell pattern printed in 6 colours which gives the paua design a shimmering quality. Illustration based on a photo by Rod Morris.
Surface Active storewide 10% off, storewide, here, use promo code “ARTYKIWI.”
What a way to spend lockdown! As Surface Active’s graphic designer I built this new collection of awesome New Zealand Nature Inspired T-shirts from a mix of our legacy drawings, photolitho artwork and some new hand-rendered digital illustrations.
To celebrate the launch of Chrissie and my new store we’d like to share a storewide 10% discount offer. You can shop here https://surface-active.myteespring.co/?pr=ARTYKIWI to get your Surface Active teeshirts, use promo code “ARTYKIWI.”
The jewelled gecko is available here, and the kiwi is available here.
Surface Active: making waves in a sea of sameness.