January 23, 2017

Results from a Two hour Screen-printing Demo

Last week, I gave a screen-printing and surface design demonstration at the Elverhoj Musuem in Solvang. It was a lot of fun to share some of the techniques I use to color cloth. I generally don't have a preconceived plan. I just let the fabric evolve. Most of the time, it turns out well. Sometimes, it needs more layering. Occasionally, it turn out ugly and you just have to cut it into smaller pieces.

I had a very interested crowd and they had great questions and suggestions. The two hours flew by and only one piece of fabric was fully developed. I let the fabrics batch for 24 hours, added more dye and batched for another 24 hours. I promised to post the before and after photos of the fabric, so here they are along with a brief description of what was used.

Before: Vinyl shelf liner shapes were stuck to a silk screen. Thickened dyes were used to print onto denim fabric.

After: More thick and thin dyes were added. This will become a shopping bag.

Before: Thickened dye was used with a thermofax screen.

After: Thickened gold dye was added.

Before: Thin orange dye was used to stamp the circles. Thin fuchsia dye was sprayed into the center of each circle.
After: I filled the white area with thick green dye.

Before: This started as a drop cloth. I used thick blue dye to screen-print a design made with blue tape stuck to the screen. It turned out pretty ugly.

After: I added more thick gold dye. It's still ugly but I think there is still hope for it.

This is the only piece that was completely finished in one pass. I used sponges to spread thin dye and thick black dye to stamp the ovals.

Of course, I didn't get as much done as I hoped to, so more dyeing was done the next day at home. Thin dye was poured and blended onto white denim. This will become a shopping bag.

This piece was dyed at home. The writing was done on white denim with black dye in a squirt bottle. I splashed fuchsia dye on the background and sprayed with water to blur and blend everything. As it turns out, I like the back of the fabric better. I'm currently making a shopping bag with this fabric. I'll post it when it's finished.

This piece was dyed at home. Blue dye was poured onto the denim fabric. Thickened wasabi and purple dyes were spread around. This will become a shopping bag.

There will be one more demonstration at the Elverhoj Museum on January 28th at 2:00 pm. This one will show you how to Make Stamps. Our exhibit will be hanging until February 5th.