The Process

SUNPRINTING: The Process

We print natural & surreal designs by sunprinting (printing using ultraviolet light.) Conan’s Altar was born out of a love for being outdoors in the sun and rain - we make clothing the same way.

The process is this:

We seek out high quality 100% heavy and ringspun cotton based fabrics to work with. Designs made by the owner of Conan's Altar (a local interdisciplinary artist) and other esoteric, public domain pieces are printed onto shirts, hoodies, tanks, jogging pants and more with a permanent, washable dye.

Almost identically to the process of cyanotyping, the clothing is then exposed to UV light to develop the dye, printing the design onto the fabric – after washing, the clothing is now ready to wear. Like trees or plants, our clothing is able to stand the test of time and all kinds of weather. Designed to be permanently part of your wardrobe but more importantly, permanently part of the Earth.

Made with Light.

Yes, it's possible. We use the same techniques used by the first photographers and print makers to print on natural and recycled fabric. We print our own designs. We print public domain artwork, like illustrations of plants from the 1700s and traditional tarot designs.

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Our Raw, Natural Cotton Base

We start with certified 100% GOTS organic cotton (or recycled materials) for our base garments. Verified STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX®, this is our natural, most gentle base for sunprinting.

Printing Using Our UV Exposure Dyes

Using stencils of negatives of our designs, we expose a UV dye on our natural fabrics. UV light exposes the negative into a positive image, much like photographic film.