Had a wonderful day on a couple of weeks ago, doing a print taster day at Bradford.  I’d only dabbled in lino cut, and etching before.  This was a fast paced tour of Monoprints, Pigment ink printing, Devore, discharge printing, and foil printing.  I learnt so much and it was great having all the great facilities when all the other students are on their holidays.

There were 10 of us doing it – mainly from our year of the HNC.  We’d asked whether it would be possible to run this day for us especially, it wasn’t anything to do with our Weave/knit course.  However, now I know more, I would love to incorporate print into my textile design.  It’s really exciting – a whole new world.

We started with Monoprints – using Procion Dyes to draw on the screens.  Faced with having to do some spontaneous art, I kept it simple. 

Mono Print using procion dyes Mono Print using procion dyes

 

I also did a second pass of the squeegee with the binder on and got a softer faded image.

Then we used the images we had brought to put onto screens.   This gave screens that could be reused time and time again with different techniques.  Light sensitive paint was scraped over a screen and then the image put over the screen when it was hardened under UV light.  The non-hardened paint could be washed off, leaving a reverse image of my photo.

  Pigment Ink paints were then squeegeed through the screen.  They only reached the fabric below the screen if the screen design allowed it. 

Pigment ink paint print
Pigment ink paint print

This one was done in 2 stages.  First I screen printed a blank screen with a mixture of yellow and blue for the background.  Then it dried and I superimposed my image using black ink.I was quite happy with this one.

 

 

Devore paste printing worked quite well one a white background – in this case a viscose silk.  The Aluminium sulphate eats away at the viscose but not the silk.   
 This has interesting implication for design of warps and wefts by weavers who then want to use devore.  We, as weavers. have a lot more scope for interesting effects.  Have a look at http://www.hollybrackmann.com/surface-design/weaver-devore-2003.html.  Holly has explored this technique and explains how to do it. 
Discharge printing (bleaching out) also worked well for my image.  But foil printing (glueing down foil with a hot iron.  The glue having been applied through the screen to get the glue in the correct places for the image).
Foil printing
Foil printing

I loved the way the foil reflected the light as the water on the beach would have done.

By the way, the photo was taken by my brother and shows his wife and dog.
I just touched on printing – brilliant day exploring lots of techniques.  I think there is a real skill in knowing which technique suits which image, whether to reverse the image colours (black where white is, etc), what colour background to use.   Using black background didn’t always work for my image as the original photo was silhouettes on a light reflecting background. 
I’m looking forward to learning more and experimenting. 
 I realise my explanations were a bit rushed.  But hey, we have books for all that stuff!
jane (maybe get round to some weaving this side of Christmas)
Advertisement