3rd week textiles

This week in textiles we did screen prints, Screen printing is a modern industrial development that has derived from stenciling. Screens are constructed of either a wooden or metal frame, with a mesh stretched tightly over the frame. The print technician prepares and also exposes screens. A positive image is needed to transfer onto the screen. This need to be either a drawn/photocopied  black and white image onto tracing paper, or an image painted in opaque medium onto kodatrace. The final image needs to be given to the print technician.

 

The Process

 Firstly, the screen mesh is coated in a light sensitive emulsion and allowed to dry in a dark space, usually a drying cupboard. Once dry, the screen is then transferred quickly to an ultra violet light exposure unit., the positive image is placed under the screen, and the screen is exposed to the light for the relevant time. The black/opaque areas of the image stops the UV light getting through to the light sensitive emulsion, this keeps the emulsion soft. The UV light is able to go through the white areas of the image, making the emulsion hard. Once exposure has stopped, the screen is then washed with a hose pipe and the pressure washer peels away the soft emulsion, revealing the screen mesh underneath. The exposure process is now complete.

 

 

Puff binder (Minerfoam B) is a paste that gives a 3D effect to fabric. it can either be screen printed onto fabric or hand-painted on. once it has been applied to fabric, heat must be applied to produce the puff effect. used straight from the pot, it will give you a white print, pigment inks can be added to the puff binder to make a coloured print, but will only make a pastel shade as the paste is already white.  

The health and safety with this is to keep the heat gun aimed at the table and not to get your hands in the way of the heat and not to have it aimed at anyone else or yourself as it is quite hot. 

 

The Process

Place the puff binder on the screen just above the image. Place the squeegee in the paste, then put the blade behind the pasted bring the squeegee towards you with slight pressure bringing the ink forwards and covering the image. then take the ink back up again, two pulls on the squeegee should be enough.

once printing is complete the screens need to be washed. Firstly the excess ink needs to be scraped off the screen and put back in the pot. Then, take the screen to the wash out area and wash both sides of the screen with the hose pipe. once the screen is clean it needs to be placed in the drying cupboard to dry, this should take around 15 minutes.

Once the fabric has been printed and the screen washed, heat needs to be applied to the fabric. Using a heat gun, lightly wave the heat over the fabric, until the print puffs up.

Health and safety Screen printing - Gloves and aprons must be worn. Try and avoid spillage and splashing. Leave area clean and tidy. wash away any unwanted dyes or inks. wash hands before leaving the print room.
Health and safety puff binder - Be aware of hot surfaces when using the heat gun. Wear protective rubber gloves and apron. Be aware of wet floors in wash out area. Try to avoid spillage and splashing. Leave area clean and tidy. Wash away unwanted dyes and inks. Wash hands before leaving the print room.  

Repeat patterns

For this lesson we looked at repeat patterns and did a few pattern's so that we could look at how we would do our final piece. This first pattern was quite simple to make. We had to cut the pattern which was already a square into 4 squares and label the pieces A, B, C, D. I had to swap the pieces A, D and B, C with each other to show the pattern stays the same even when swapped. then i put mine with everyone else's on my table. Then I had to do the same with another two other patterns which were a bit harder to do

Textiles 2nd week

This week in textiles we did felt and paper making. For the paper making we used shredded paper and it was mixed with water, then we used a frame with netting on it and this sieved the water out so we were left with just the paper, once we had drained the majority of the water out we turned it over on to a piece of cloth and used a sponge to get the rest of the water out, we could then emboss patterns into the paper using string or other objects, we also did mark making.

 

 

 

 

for felting you took the wool and layered it onto an A5 sized piece and then sprinkled watered down detergent into the fibers, then we used coloured wool to create a pattern and then poured the detergent onto it and rolled it up in bubble wrap and rolled it over and over again and turning it while also adding more detergent each time.  

 

Health and safety paper making - Be aware of water spillages. Leave work area clean and tidy. Be aware of electrics with water. Take care when using blender.

Health and safety felt making- Be aware that you are working with boiling water and always wear rubber gloves. Point the spray bottle in the direction of the felt only.

Heat Press

We were shown how to use the heat press, this is done by heating it up to 180 degrees Celsius and put a sheet of paper that protected the fabric when the press is on it. you pull the lever around and then down, after 18 seconds you can release your fabric, you then pull the magic touch paper off the fabric, you must do this fast as it cools down the paper sticks to the fabric. You have to be careful while near the heat press as it gets very hot so it is best to handle with care.

Observational Drawing project

These are the photos that I took for the observational drawings as well as the drawings i did . I chose objects I thought would be interesting to draw and clothes with different patterns and shapes on them. This wasn't one of my favorite projects as i struggled to get everything in proportion. 

3rd week ceramics

This week we made tiles based on nature, i started out by rolling out some clay to about 2 cm thick and then used a template to cut out two squares. one of my tiles was a flower and the other was based on shells. i made mine quite simple as when i tried to do a more complicated design i struggled to work with the clay and it dried out very quickly and i decided to do a more simplistic design rather than waste time. I quite enjoyed this lesson and i liked trying to show what we have been doing in our Tuesday classes in our tiles.

2nd week ceramics

This week we made insects out of clay, i found this fairly hard and the more i tried to do different designs with the clay the quicker it dried up and cracked, this was difficult to work with and i think that this could have gone better, however i do think parts of this went well and i did the best i could.