Screen, Dye and Discharge

One of the things I initially loved about Deconstructed Screen Printing (DSP) is the orderliness of a row of prints.   Watching the prints change as the dye dissolved was fascinating all by itself.  However, one of my goals for the class was to learn to move beyond the grid composition.   Also, there was general interest in the class on how to unite print blocks in a piece.   Here's a demonstration by Kerr which shows the typical grid composition.

Kerr's garment fabrics show a much more sophisticated use of DSP.  She talked about how she's moved on from the basic techniques she taught in the 2007 "Deconstructed Screen Printing for Fabric and Paper" DVD.   So, she guided us to discover answers for ourselves!

One simple way that we moved away from block printing was to paint hot wax on our screens to break up the edges.

I've used a similar resist technique in other types of screen printing where you tear a strip of masking tape down the center and tape it to the sides of the screen to give an organic look to your print edges. Hand torn newspaper masks can do the same thing to frame a print.   Please comment if you have other ways to manipulate edges on your screen.

I shared this piece of fabric made in the workshop "Screen, Dye and Discharge - Enlarging Your Markmaking Vocabulary with Kerr Grabowski" in a previous blog.  It shows a single layer of screen printing using different colors and values of thickened dyes.  I laid down the prints at random changing the orientation of the screen.   One of the great tips from Kerr was to unify the individual screen prints by painting in thickened dyes around them.   Yeah!  This works really well.  I found it so appealing that I turned it into a fingerpainting exercise ...with gloves on of course...

I created a second DSP screen using pipe cleaners, string and part of the textured placemat for the next layer.   Wish I'd thought to get a photo of it before printing!   There were enough pipe cleaner petals to make a loose flower shape.  Once again, I printed the screen randomly in different orientations to unify the design.  You can see the whole piece down below.

Detail shot of the pipe cleaner flower and texture from placemat and string

Now that I'd tried out the screening and dyeing portion of class, it was time to move on to discharging.  I wanted to create a focal point this time.   I cut a large freezer paper stencil and ironed it onto the fabric.  I used a screen to squeegee on the discharge paste.   Sadly, the screen wasn't big enough to cover the entire stencil.   I applied the discharge paste in 4 quadrants.   I was initially surprised to discover that the center of the stencil had discharged beautifully, but the outer edges had not.   It occurred to me that the area in the center of the motif was where the 4 quadrants overlapped...4 times the application of discharge paste.   So, the mystery was solved and I brought home an object lesson!   Who knows, someday this fade technique may be just what I'm looking for...

I still like the overall piece.  Notice how the discharge paste didn't work on the blue dye at the center of the freezer paper stencil.   I got a hidden color from a mixed dye showing through to add interest.  The transparency of MX Reaction dyes is so wonderful to layer.   The fact that the discharging wasn't completely successful was disappointing, but it's an opportunity to work back into the piece.   Kerr routinely works back into her pieces which is another chance to unify your design.

As I was glorying in all this color and busyness, I peeked over at the neighboring table to see Andi creating a gorgeous piece using white space and a simple DSP background of lines to unify her piece.   Wow!   This elegant design speaks to me of serenity.  Andi's piece doesn't read as a grid composition, so she broke out of the block syndrome too.

Janis's whimsical piece is alive with color and movement.   I can see blocks in the background, but they aren't the dominant feature of this design.   She's unified her prints using repetition of shape and rhythm.  I found it interesting to compare this piece to other pieces on her blog.

The blocks in Cindi's piece are integrated into the design giving it a feeling of fracture and layering. The analogous colors and nautilus motif also work to unify the piece.   After thinking about the successful ways that people integrated their prints, I think that it comes back to good uses of the principles and elements of design.