Deconstructed Screen Printing

One of the surface design techniques I did a while back and wanted to get back to is deconstructed screen printing, or DSP. For those unfamiliar with it, DSP is basically a silk screen printing process using a screen that has been prepared beforehand with thickened dyes and objects that leave impressions in the drying dye. When the screen is printed with clear print paste (urea, water and sodium alginate), the dyes breakdown little by little, leaving different images on the fabric with each pass of the squeegee. It's a fascinating process and I love the serendipitious results.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that I love photographing the screens before printing them, and then using the digital images in various ways. Two of my recent quilts were created with multiple images of DSP screens, printed on linen and then quilted.

At any rate, the photo above is a screen I did last weekend, which I printed off on Monday. The screen looks better than the printed fabric did, because the dyes were not strong enough to leave a good amount of color on the fabric. I actually liked the resulting fabric, but decided to print over it with another screen, which I plan to do in the next few days.

So I changed the dye strength that I'm using (thanks to dear Rayna), and the photo just below is what I printed off with another screen I made a couple days ago. I'm really happy with this and feel emboldened now to go for it with DSP. In fact, I've got three new screens ready to print!

The last piece of fabric was printed multiple times although not with a screen. First I sponge printed it, then laid bubble wrap underneath the fabric and rolled thickened dye over the top as though I was making a rubbing.

I love printing fabric. And I've given myself permission to throw out the dogs if there's no hope of recovery, and move on to new pieces!