Our most recent Fiber Junkies meeting focused on discharge techniques. I got so involved that my photo record of our day is pretty thin....but here's an overview of the supplies we tried.
The plastic grid came from Kate....it originally held lace but we thought it'd be a good 'template' for surface design. I applied a bleach pen to the holes and scribbled around the edge.
You never know what color will appear after the bleach does its job.....
We were all anxious to use the granulated bleach that FJ member Denny shared with us. The results were very mixed.....it did a great job if bleached out dots were all you wanted. But less successful when it came to using stencils.
It was difficult to control this product when working with defined shapes. We applied it to wet/damp fabric and allowed it to bleach out.....unfortunately these larger images simply didn't work well.
Here's Val's design using a bleach pen.....
I think this was Kate's....the bleach pen worked almost instantly on this hand-dyed fabric.
I concentrated on using mainly silk noil....which may account for the mostly disappointing results. However, this method worked much better. When using the discharge paste that Judy brought, we initially found the impressions were too indistinct when working with stencils because the medium migrated under the stencil designs.
This group is so clever....and came up with the idea of placing the stencil on the fabric and then covering it with a blank silk screen. This kept the stencil flat and firmly on the fabric as the paste was pressed through the screen.
Thie view of this piece is after screening, while it dried outside.
Once the paste dries, it's transformed by pressing with a hot iron (wear a mask). The bottom tree images purposely had more heat applied than the top one to provide different appearances.
On the lower right of this crackled design, you can see where the hot iron has completed its work......while the balance awaits more pressing OR not. That's the beauty of this method......the color changes can be manipulated.
It was a fun day.....and I have a small pile of poor results that will be my base fabric at our next meeting where we will yet again tackle deconstructed screen printing. We all just love the process and do it about twice a year.....even if we don't know what to do with the treasures we create!
1 comment:
I like how all of you combine ideas to come up with tips to make your printing better and better. The lace holder was a great idea, as was the screen to hold the stencil taut. I'm always surprised how bleach discharge on black can range in color from whitish to orangey. You got some good results with the bleach pen.
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