Fabric dye (flowers)

I recently saw a process where you use flowers to due fabric, I really wanted to have a go so at first i used some flowers that had been in the kitchen but they were starting to die, so when I put them between the fabric and used the hammer not much colour came out. I was a little disappointed with the results so I tried again with flowers from the garden that had just bloomed, this worked a little better as I had a lot more flowers whereas the first time I only had a few, however because I had to wait a week for the flowers to bloom I'd lost the post on how to finish the process, so I ended up ironing the fabric and just keeping it out of sunlight to try and keep the colour in. I washed it the other day in cold water and the colour faded slightly. I wanted to try this because it does link in with the Alice in wonderland theme slightly.

I found the link to the page on how to do this process.
http://artstudioblog.milliande.com/2013/06/eco-dyeing-flower-pounding-with-natural.html

FMP Alice in Wonderland

For my final major project I have chosen to look at Alice in Wonderland, I'm mainly looking at the book rather than the Disney film. I chose to look at Alice in wonderland because it was a book I really enjoyed when I was younger, It's also a book that was made just to read for fun rather than trying to have a moral to the story and I think this is what really sets it apart from other books and what makes it such an important book. At the moment I'm writing in a journal almost everyday, this allows me to plan out what I want to do each lesson.

Morris and Co evaluation

Morris & Co Evaluation

For this project I had to create either a length of wall paper or a length of fabric based on William Morris and an artist of my choice, after looking at a few different artists I settled on Sonia Delaunay. I thought that her work would be interesting o mix with Morris and I was looking forward to exploring different styles and colours. As I was looking at William Morris I had to try and go to an exhibition to see his work, as the trip to London was cancelled I had to go by myself. Unfortunately when I got there I was told that you couldn’t take pictures of any of the work, I didn’t want my trip to be for nothing so I managed to take a couple of pictures, they’re not brilliant but it was a start for my research. I wasn’t able to get to an exhibition for Sonia Delaunay so I decided to just do a little research and look at artists who had a similar style.

As for the research into wallpaper I went to a few different shops and picked up some wallpaper samples and some paint booklets, I even ordered some samples from the William Morris collection.

Once I had most of my research I had to think about my design and how my artist would influence them, I’ll be honest and say I’m really not that fond of William Morris and I find his work rather dull, although I do see beauty in it, so when it came to the inspiration I decided to look at nature as most of his work is based around nature, and for a while I was thinking of using his colours but I knew they wouldn’t work well with my other artist. As for Sonia Delaunay I decided to take inspiration from her style and her colours, I really loved her use of colour, she uses bright and strong bold colours and it made such a change to Morris, I also really enjoyed how she used geometric shapes and wanted that to feature in my final design.

I tried a few new techniques during this project and a few I had already done in previous projects, some I looked at were, repeat print, devore, puff binder, coda trace and weaving, I think the most challenging for me was the coda trace, I did a little sample which was just to practice and I struggled to get my head around the colour separation. I had a few problem with the repeat as I couldn’t always line it up properly but I resolved this my painting back into the parts that didn’t quite join.

Health and safety in the workshop is very important and for the most part the rules are pretty much the same for each process. Always wear gloves and an apron, have long hair tied back and wash hands before leaving the print room. Be aware of wet floors in the wash out area. Puff binder- Be aware of hot surfaces when using the heat gun. Batik- Be aware of the hot wax. Take care when taking the Tjanting tools out of the wax. Do not leave the wax pots on in an unattended room. Take care when using the iron. Procion dyes- Try to avoid spillage and splashing. Leave your area clean and tidy. Wash away unwanted inks and dyes. Devore printing- Avoid inhalation of fumes and fibres.
Sewing- Be aware of what you are doing at all times. Don't have your hands near the needle while sewing.

Throughout this project I have had feedback, I had some feedback from my classmates and I did try to work on what they said, some said to try and work on my annotation so I went back and wrote what I needed to. I also had feedback from the customer, he told me that I should look at other colours and if I stuck to the ones I was planning on using it might be a little boring, so I tried different colours when I did my prints, all the colours were from my sheet work, although they may have only been a small part of it.

I think my strengths throughout this project have been my pattern and colour, I spent a while looking at different ways of using geometric shapes, in the end I decided to do a circle made up of triangles and circles, this was my interpretation of a flower, I really enjoyed thinking up this, and I tried a few varieties and then settled on one. I think I used colour pretty well in this project, for a while I struggled to use colour confidently but I think in the end I did pretty well and would defiantly say it was a strength.

I had many samples for this project but I had to have a final piece, to decide on this I had a design meeting, this was where two others from my class talked about my samples and which they thought worked the best based on my artist, I told them about each sample and what processes I did, I obviously had my favourite but they chose one of the simpler ones which was on plain calico, they did want me to stitch into it once I had printed on it because they liked the stitching on another sample and thought it would improve it.

If I were to do this project again I think I would do a few things differently, the main thing would be that I try to do each part in a set time that way I wouldn’t be rushing in parts that really need to be done carefully and I would have had more samples. Also I would try and do a little more research on my artists. I think other than that I wouldn’t change anything.

I have learned a few new processes and techniques in this project such as devore, it’s a process where you print on to a special material with a paste that eats away the natural fibres and leaves the synthetic ones, once you have printed onto the fabric it needs to be left to dry naturally, when its dry you need to heat press it at 180⁰c for 18 seconds, this sets it, then quickly wash the fabric in the sink gently rubbing it to remove the now set paste, once it has been removed you can dye it using procion dyes and leave it to dry. I quite liked this process, although mine did go slightly wrong, because my lines were so close together on my screen they sort of bled together in parts so there are areas where too much has been burnt away, I also only used one screen as my fabric was too small to use all three. I tried devore before but the paste wasn’t mixed the correct way the first time so it didn’t work.

I think I had a few problems in this project the main one was when I did my repeat print I wasn’t always able to join it up properly, I realise now that this could be down to me not drawing exact straight lines on my tracing, I should have used a ruler or masking take to get precise lines as it would have made it much easier. Another problem was I used permaset on a few of my samples as I had dyed the fabric and it showed up much easier and the colour was a better quality, however it was much thicker than the pigment I’m used to using so I could hardly see through the screen to line it up. The main problems were with my print but I always tried to work around them, for instance with the permaset, when I couldn’t see to line it up I washed my screen and tried again and with the parts that weren’t joined up fully I painted back into it, all of the issues were resolvable and it took a lot of patience but I got there in the end. Although a lot went wrong I had a lot go well, some of my prints turned out really well and I’m proud of them, I also had good experiences with experimenting, I tried batik and puff binder both were successful and looked pretty good, I also tried sewing which turned out brilliant as in my design meeting I was told that it would look really good on the piece they had chosen. And the last thing that went really well was my final piece, I did have issues with part of it not lining up but I was able to remove that piece as the material was too large anyway, and the end product looks really good, I’m so happy with it and think it links to my artists.

Time managing really isn’t my forte, I tried really hard to prioritise but it didn’t work so well, I did better at managing my time in the print room, before I went in each time I planned on what I needed to do and what had to be done first in order to get the most out of my time in there, I think I did better while there as I did produce a fair amount of samples with a few different processes on them.

One thing I know I didn’t do well in was using my sketch book, I don’t find it very easy to use it, my ideas don’t flow very well and I don’t seem to get much out of it, I know it has to be used and I really did try, it’s just that I find it easier to get my ideas out on my sheet work at times.

I do feel I met the brief, I may have gone a little off track but I think I met it.

Once again I left my blog for a while without updating and then did a big update, I really shouldn’t do this because sometimes I forget what I’ve done and have to look in my notes and then spend a couple of hours trying to sort it out. I don’t feel I used it as well as I could have but I do think I got quite a lot on it. 

Heath and Safety

At all times when in the print room or class room you must follow the health and safety guidelines, They are there to protect you and the people around you.

Puff binder- Be aware of hot surfaces when using the heat gun. wear protective gloves and an apron. Be aware of wet floors in the wash out area. Wash hands before leaving the print room.

Batik- Be aware of the hot wax. Take care when taking the Tjanting tools out of the wax. Do not leave the wax pots on in an unattended room. Take care when using the iron. Wear protective gloves and apron. Wash hands before leaving the print room.

Procion dyes- Wear protective rubber gloves and apron. Try to avoid spillage and splashing. Leave your area clean and tidy. Wash away unwanted inks and dyes. Wash hands before leaving the print room.

Devore printing- wear protective rubber gloves and apron. Be aware of wet floors in the wash out area. Leave area clean and tidy. Avoid inhalation of fumes and fibers. Wash hands before leaving the print room.

Screen printing- wear protective gloves and apron. Be aware of wet floors in the wash out area. wash away unwanted inks and dyes. wash hands before leaving the print room.

Pigment printing- Wear protective gloves and apron. wash hands before leaving the print room.

Sewing- Be aware of what you are doing at all times. Don't have your hands near the needle while sewing.

Final piece

 This is my final Piece, it is done on calico, this was chosen by others in a design meeting, they said they felt it fitted my artist the best and looked the best, I also got to sew into it once I had done my print. I used a sewing machine that had an embroidery setting on it, this allowed me to do a design that went around the circles. I did have a few issues with this such as the print didn't line up well on part of my fabric, however this can be resolved by shortening part of the fabric, it only has to be 1 meter so I can get away with copping some off. I had to paint into parts of my fabric where it didn't print too well or where it didn't completely line up, I'm really happy with how it turned out and cant wait to finish it off fully.

Samples

Here are a few of my samples and process I have done.
Most of my fabric samples were dyed using procion dye and then pressed and washed before I printed on them, this caused a few issues when I went to print on the calico, when I washed it and left it to dry it got quite wrinkled and it was hard to print on in places where it didn't lie flat, I did try to flatten it out on the heat press but it didn't do much.
I used mostly pigment inks when I did my screen printing however as I had some dyed backgrounds it made my colours look weak and they weren't the colours they should have been and it was a little disappointed so on a few of my pieces I used permaset, this sits on top of the fabric rather than sinking in like the pigment does.
I did try to do prints on paper but they just didn't work, they moved when I printed on them and the colours were too dark so my pigments didn't show very well, I also noticed that the pigment sort of bubbled on the top on the paper and it looked very messy, I really didn't like the outcome of the aper samples so I did more fabric samples.
I had two attempts at devore, the first i tried it on devore velvet and unfortunately the mixture we had in class wasn't made the right way and it didn't work, I got a chance to try it again and I only did one screen on it as I had such a small piece of fabric, I really liked how t turned out and even though it bled a little and ate away at fibres that it shouldn't have it still looked good, I used procion dye and it really improves the look, if you are printing on devore velvet you must print on the back so it can eat away the fibres.
I had a chance to use puff binder in this project and it worked well, I even coloured some of it and even though it was a lighter colour when I had used the heat gun it still looked really good and worked well.
As a little experiment I decided to use the tyvek I was given at the start of the year, from what i can remember it is a man made material and you can print on it, dye it with busho inks and manipulate it with heat, I did all of these on my piece and although I didn't use all three of my screens I think it looked very good, I think my favourite part was manipulating it with the heat gun, I only had to hold it over part of the material before it would scrunch up slightly.

Final Design

I will write about my final design soon once I have tried the screens to see if they work.