Printed Fabric

Previously, I showed you some of our screen printing on fabric.  Today I'm going to show you the "unsuccessful" fabrics.  I say they are unsuccessful because they did not turn out how I wanted them to.  However, I think some are usable, as is.  And the rest can be worked further to become something more usable.  I might try stamping, adding paint or rubbings.

The first day we worked with screen printing.  I tried using the framed screen but wasn't having much success with that.  So I mostly worked with the thermofax screen I had.

The fabrics looked pretty good when I printed them.  But they were still wet.  As they dried and then got washed, some of the dye was lighter or removed in places (the other reason I would call them unsuccessful).  I don't know if the soda ash didn't soak into the fabric enough in those areas or it was the way I printed the dye.

Here are some of the yellow, orange, reds done with the thermofax screen.  The orange piece doesn't look like there is anything on it.  The dye color was probably too similar to the fabric.  The red piece on the right end was actually a printed grid using the lines screen one direction, then turning it 90 degrees.  Most of it washed out or the color was too similar to the fabric.

This was printed with blue using the thermofax screen.  This one turned out pretty good.

Since I had quite a bit of dye leftover, the next day I decided to experiment with mono printing using a piece of plexiglas. I used the some of the same pieces of fabric from the day before.  Below, in the first yellow piece, the long orange lines were screen printed and the red was the mono printing.

In the middle piece, there were suppose to be more lines but I had too much dye on the plate when I mono-printed it, so it just ran all together.

Here are some of the pieces I mono printed in the blues and greens.  The light blue piece on the right side had large screen printed lines on it from the day before.

Here is another piece that I mono printed with a looser weave fabric.  That gave it more texture, which I like.  I also like that when you mono print, the fabric is different on the front and back.  You can see the front on the right hand side and the back on the left.  Two for one!

Another mono printed piece with the front on the bottom and back on the top.

I also tried stamping with the thickened dye using a stamp I had made out of  cut fun foam that was attached to a piece of plexiglas.  That seemed to work pretty well, except that some of it was washed out again.

I need to keep working on it, but I think I learned some things.