If the Plain White T’s had met junior Elise Nichols before they named their band, they might have chosen a more colorful name.

Since 7th grade, when she learned the trade from her uncle, Nichols has been spray-painting shirts using a stencil of her own design. She has sold over 100 shirts to friends and acquaintances through word of mouth for 14 dollars each. Last year she created a shirt for the Invisible Children club and donated the proceeds to the cause. The 40 shirts sold out in two days and reaped a profit of 400 dollars.

Nichols has 40 cans of different color spray paint and three books full of stencils that customers can mix and match into limitless designs. She also has about 20 fully developed templates, she said. Although she doesn’t plan on turning it into a formal business, she likes the artistic freedom the shirts provide.

“I have an abstract mind and that’s where a lot of designs come from,” Nichols said. “One design leads to another. I never do concrete shapes, so they always morph into something else.”

In order to get the interesting effects her shirts are known for, Nichols manipulates household objects and uses trash as tools for her designs. She once went dumpster diving with a friend and found an array of unique scrap metal that she has used to create repetitions of circles or diamonds. Her creative shirts have secured her a loyal fan base here at Whitman.

“I think what she is doing is a really good idea. I buy them to support her but I love how colorful and unique they are,” said junior Karen Jensen, who has bought five shirts.

Nichols saves costs by purchasing white Hanes shirts in bulk. She originally chose this shirt as her canvas because it is a timeless clothing item, she said. As styles change there are numerous ways to adapt it: fraying, cutting the sleeves, the bottom, or even the back.

“I wear them around the house all the time, but they are still really cute,” junior Natalie Andrasko said.

To protect herself from the spray paint, Nichols wears a gas mask and sprays outside. But this means most of her time is spent dragging supplies to and from her toolshed-converted-to–studio. Painting only takes five minutes to do and three to dry.

As she’s matured and her art work has evolved, Nichols tries to make her shirts represent her thoughts and feeling rather than just be aesthetically pleasing. Her favorite design is of a group of seven men in black suits with one person in a colored suit and colored hair. He represents Nichols who, as she points out, has “pretty radical hair.”

“A lot of people conform to the same things but the awesome person standing out is the greatest one,” Nichols said. “Be unique.”