We Had Breakdown

Printing that is. Dryed dye was breaking down all over the place and some stunning results were happening. Can't wait for "Show and Tell" next week.

Bring the images back along with your stencils, silk screens, stamps, rubbing supplies, printing ink and paint to accent what you already printed. I will bring more thickened dye be sure your cotton is soda ash treated and DRY before you come to class.

Don't forget to make your gelatin plate ahead of time. (Before Class) so it is set and ready to print on Wednesday.

Get your organza and cotton duck ready for printing if you want to screen print organza for a kimono. We will be doing this in 2 weeks. If you need to order fabric DO IT NOW.

We Had Breakdown

Finished!

The cabinet man just left and I took the first shots of my kitchen without the plastic and sawdust all over the place. The stove is once again hooked up and the fridge is out of the family room. WOW! I can cook in my own kitchen if I so desire. I'm very pleased with how it all turned out. Now I need to go shopping for some nice accessories.

Class notes* We will be doing breakdown printing on Wednesday so don't forget your screens and prepared fabric.

Breakdown Printing

Materials:
Blank silk screen
Squeege
Thickened dye
Made with Sodium Alginate and dye powder
Fabric Silk for Acid Dye Cotton for Procion Dye

Pre-preparation:
Mix Sodium Alginate
Into a quart of warm water stir 1 to 2 Tablespoons of Sodium Alginate powder.
Stir until dissolved or use a dedicated blender to mix (It will still have a few lumps)
Let it sit for at least 1 to 2 hours or overnight. If it is too thick stir in warm water to thin the solution. If not using right away refrigerate until ready to use.

Soak Cotton, Linen, or Rayon
Make a Soda Ash solution of 1/2 cup Soda Ash with 2 quarts water and soak the fabric at least 15 to 30 minutes, but overnight is best. Hang to dry, press lightly with warm iron.

Silk Printing:
Mix Acid dye powder with thickened Sodium Alginate (1 or 2 teaspoons dye powder per 1 Cup thickener). Mix well the day before using. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Prepare the Screen:
Lightly paint inside of the screen with a couple of colors of thickened dye, leaving several open spaces. Let it dry upside down. This needs to be done far enough in advance to be completely dry before printing.

Printing:
Iron the silk fabric smooth and place on a padded surface. Lay the prepared screen down and use another color thickened dye or clear thickener or more than one color thickened dye and squeegee it across the dry dye. As you print the dried dye will breakdown and each print will be different. This is the magic of this technique.

Setting the Dye: The silk will need to be steam set. Then rinsed (run through the rinse cycle in the washing machine for best results) to remove the thickener and any excess dye. Damp dry and iron until dry.

Cotton, Linen, or Rayon Printing:
Mix Procion Dye powder with thickened Sodium Alginate ( 1 or 2 teaspoons dye powder per 1 Cup thickener). Mix well the day before using. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Prepare the Screen as above and let it dry upside down.

Printing: Lay out the smoothed Soda Ash treated fabric on a plastic covered padded surface and print as above; however while the print is still wet roll plastic and the fabric together and place in a plastic bag for 24 hours to “batch” and set the dye.

Its in the Details

We will start layering over our backgrounds in the next class. Bring the fabrics you painted last week and make them sing with rubbing, stamps, screens and stencils. Bring thicker paints, like Luminier, printing ink, paint sticks or oil pastels. A stencil brush is also handy for blending and smoothing.
I will bring the Thermofax machine in case you need a few more silk screens. Bring your Xerox copies, remember printer copies do not work so head to a copy shop and get a copy made.
The "Birds on a Wire" pattern seems to be very popular. That makes me happy. If you ordered more patterns I will bring them with me. I'm going to get the copies made today. I have been off baby-sitting for Sara for a couple of days so now am catching up.
My kitchen is coming along beautifully. Right now it is still wrapped in plastic and tape, but he assures me another week we will be finished. In the meantime I have no access to cooking, but that's okay I spend more time in my "studio" working on ideas for us to try.

Class has begun

We are going to work with Paints for a few weeks. This is a jacket made with two 30" silk scarves painted with Dyna Flo (thanks to inspiration from Sherrill Kahn) So easy. After painting and ironing to set I did oil pastel rubbings and gold paint stamps. It is so easy and great results. This week we will be painting backgrounds and next week we will layer on stamps, rubbings, stencils etc.
Also we will paint backgrounds for the "Dangerous Animals" if you wish.
The black holes are part of a sample I am making for a class I will be teaching in Houston on using the speciality threads out there. Thick threads go through the bobbin and you sew upside down. In fact the class is called, "Upside Down and Backwards". Yes, they are holes.