More Deconstructed Screen Printing

I brought out the screens to try DSP again. I made up a couple of screens and let them dry, while waiting I decided to use stencils on the back of another screen to print previously dyed fabrics.



Using the screen of the of the swirly stencil, I let that dry also for DSP. Remembering to stop printing before the whole design was wasted from the screen, I started to print. I used rubber bands, crinkled saran wrap and sequin waste.

This screen was bubble wrap and hair clips.

This one I used black dye in an extruder and drew flowers and leaves.

The end of the flowers and the stencil screen.

These turned out better than my first try, but I still need more imagination in layering items under the screens.

A couple of days later I dyed gradations of yellow/orange, blue/green, and blue/violet. I used different sets of dye mixtures to get clear colors and muted colors. (Used Linda Johansen's book "Fabric Dyer's Dictionary"). This book is a great resource for dye recipes that can be duplicated with same results every time.

The first set of fabrics are yellow/oranges. On the left is clear using lemon yellow and fushia, on the right is muted using golden yellow and chinese red.

The second set of fabrics are blue/green. On the left is clear using turquoise and lemon yellow, on the right is muted using cobalt blue and golden yellow.

The last set of fabrics is blue/violets. On the left is clear using turquoise and fushia, on the right is muted using cobalt blue and chinese red.

I got a good range of values of clear and muted colors. I have a tendency to lean towards the muted colors, but know that the clear values will come in handy.

The last fabric was a fabric I pre-soaked in soda ash water, laid it out on a plastic covered foam board and squirted muted blue/green and muted yellow/orange dye onto the fabric and let dry in the sun. This will be a great fabric to tie into a triatic color scheme of blue/green, yellow/orange, and red/violet.

My next project is to overdye some of these fabrics.

Come back to see how they come out.

Dyeing Results

I finally rinsed, washed, dried, and pressed the fabrics I dyed last week. All the heat from last week kept me at a slower pace. Most all the fabric I was very pleased with, some not as much.

The screen print and one of the monoprinting I really liked. The overdyed colors are very light which as what I was aiming for.

The colors don't photograph well because of the lightness. I did learn though when printing with black I need a more concentrated dye solution for it to come out black and not a very dark gray.The combed through monoprinting that was overdyed with red/orange and red/violet came out darker than what I hoped for. This will probably be used cut up.
The two fabrics that were dyed upright on foam core turned out okay, but I dyed them on dry soda soaked fabric. I think there would have been more blending if they were wet.

The tray fabric that caught the run-off drips came out very interesting and could be used in many different ways.

The fabric with blue stamps and overdyed yellow, bronze and chino could have been blended more but since the fabric was still damp when I did it, I didn't want a lot of mixing with the blue. Allthough I did like the added green elements inside of circles and ovals.
Next time I'll start with dry fabric and then wait till the stamp prints are dry before dyeing over it.

The 3-layered fabrics came out great. They speak for themselves.

The cup dyeing of oranges and grays came out just as I expected, some mottling and dark to light. The nickel and pewter ranges turned out great.

The oranges were stronger than expected, was going for some corals and salmons, but they are beautiful.

All said and done I was pleased with my work and experiments. The heat is still oppressive so I'll work in my studio till it cools a little.

Martha is done with all her rinsing, etc. also. Go to http://marthahallart.com/blog to see her results.

Dyeing Tuesday

Yesterday, my friend Martha and I got out the dyes and set to work(I mean FUN!!) I had a couple of pieces that I monoprinted and screen printed last week, so I added background colors. The monoprint was swirled with black, then overdyed very light yellow, yellow/green and blue/green for the background colors.

This monoprint I used a hair pick through the black dye, then added a red/orange dye for the background. Its not looking to good but I'll see after rinsing.

The screen print was overdyed with diluted yellow, yellow/green and light red.

Also I wanted to try squirting dyes down fabric that was pinned to foam board. I used a yellow, light red and burgundy on this one

and yellow and ultra violet on this one.

I put a third fabric in the bottom tray to catch the drips and got an interesting fabric from it.
This next one I used thickened blue dye and stamped with a pool noodle and luffa sponge, let dry a little

then overdyed with yellow, bronze and chino.

This one was squirted with yellow, burgundy and violet, then I smooshed them around.

These are a few fabrics that are low-water immersion dyed.
Grays


and oranges.

Lastly, I layer dyed fabric starting with yellow on the first piece, crimson on second, and blue on the third.

Can you tell I like orange!!!

Check out Martha's fabrics at www.marthahallart.com/blog to see her works in progress.

They all are being processed and need to be rinsed and washed. It was a busy day but I hope the results are worth it.

I'll post again with the finished results.