Textiles - Drawing Ink Session...

ashleyraynor1
Apr 15, 2015
2 min read

We learnt a new textile process today. It's similar to screen printing but you just use an empty screen, you then draw the pattern on with inks and dyes and print onto your fabric using a manutex thickening agent over the top.

I started by mixing mine and my friends dyes under the extractor. The extractor sucks up any particles in the air that can be harmful for me to breath in, that's why we mix the dyes under here. I mixed us six different procion dyes in total using about a quarter of a teaspoon and just simply topping up with water.

^ Here were out six procion dyes ready to draw with

I turned my screen the wrong way up and began to draw, paint and use different objects to give me unique shapes. Like the above photo where I used a rolled up piece of cardboard dipped into dye to create this unique shape...

I used a fork to create the straight lines, paintbrushed to create the other marks and cardboard to create some too...

I also started layering colours and blending wet colours into eachother. This was more about experimenting rather than designing. We weren't creating a beautiful design, we were seeing what we could do with the colours, what shapes we could create, could we layer wet colours?, could we layer dry colours? How would this turn out?, how would that turn out? That was the objective for the day...

Note to self: gloves are useless with dyes as the dyes just seep through.

Once my screen was finished. I thoroughly dried it with a hair dryer. I then flipped it over and placed it (ink side down) on my large sheet of cotton fabric. I got the thickening agent and pulled it with the squeegee back and forth until I had covered the whole sheet.

This was my sheet! It's not finished yet because it still has to go in the steamer and I will upload a picture when it is completely finished but here at least we can see how the colours can be layered and merged together to create some beautiful patterns and shapes.