Since I have decided to focus on a background of Saltaire homes in repeat for my textile piece, printing was a natural next step.
Firstly,
I tried simple foam printing. I drew the outline of a row of Saltaire homes
onto child’s craft foam using a blunt pencil, which left an indent. I then
pressed the foam into some printing ink and pressed onto paper, repeating until
the paper was covered.
This design appealed to me as it captured the uniform nature of the gridline streets within Saltaire, and the methodology captured the child-like theme behind a model village. However, the results were blurry and none of the striking architectural elements were visible.
My
next experiment was to print using a template. For this, I first dyed a small
piece of white cotton with tea, the methodology of which I explain in more detail in my visual
portfolio, the idea behind the tea was threefold. First, it is a sustainable
method of staining, which ties in nicely with the project consideration of
sustainability. Secondly, tea represents home and human habitat; a ‘liquid
comfort blanket’. And thirdly, tea is a very similar colour to the Yorkshire
stone used to build Saltaire houses. At this stage I am still considering
whether to use a ‘brown’ background or stick with the more graphic monochrome.
Once
dry, I placed a paper stencil over the stained cotton and delicately dappled
black Procion dye over using a paintbrush. You can see from the result above a number of the
stronger building features, such as the archways over the door, but this method
was not as successful as I would have liked.
Digital printing was my next experiment. After playing with lots of different outlines, first with pen on paper, then adapting these images on photoshop, I used an online printing company, Contrado. Using Contrado’s online tool allowed me to alter the scale of my design and choose the fabric to be printed on. I chose a cotton twill for my initial experiment, since this would be hardy for outdoor use. The results can be seen in the top picture, above, and below.
As you can see, digital printing makes every minute detail very obvious, so I would need to finetune my design! On the plus side, digital printing is a sustainable option because it produces little waste (Wisbrun, 2011). In this particular case, the ink is water-based, and digital printing uses less chemicals than other textile industry methods (Wisbrun, 2011). It would mean however, I would have to use new fabric, rather than re-formatting pre-used or vintage scraps.
Finally, I tried screen printing. I love the graphic element of screen printing and thought this would work well with my design. The sample below was my first attempt; achieved by cutting a basic template out of newsprint paper and using a mix of Manutex with a number of Procion dye pastes. Although the colours were wrong, it was a useful experiment in colour overlap and ‘figuring out’ positive and negative space when printing.
Using a more complex series of templates below, I tried a more ‘realistic' colour palette for my Saltaire houses. With limited dye colours available, I swapped a brown for yellow, mixed a green to use in place of white, and finished with a black for the architectural markings.
The
shapes were relatively crisp for a first attempt although waiting between each
colour step was time-consuming, despite the use of a hairdryer! And while the
colours are striking, I am still erring towards a simpler monochrome design for
my background pattern. This would be a perfect method for maintaining a
complete hand-made approach to producing my textile product, but as a newcomer
to screen printing, I would need to consider whether my current skill-level is
high enough for the product I would like to produce.
Above: the process
Above: the finished print. 3 templates, 3 colours to achieve the key architectural elements
Bibliography
Wisbrun, L. (2011) The Complete Guide to Designing
and Printing Fabric. A & C Black Publishers Limited
Comments
Post a Comment