Monday's Print Storm

Back to deconstructed screen printing again! Yesterday I printed screens I prepared last week, and these are the best pieces. The first screen was made by applying thickened dye to the screen with a syringe. The image below is a manipulated photo of the screen prior to printing off.

I did something different this time, in prepping the screens ~ most teachers of the DSP process instruct us to mix pasted dye powder into prepared print paste (urea and metaphos water softener in water with sodium alginate added to thicken), and as I hadn't really done it this way before, I tried it this time. Previously, I had simply added the alginate to already-mixed dyestock, let it sit overnight to thicken without lumps, and then used that for screen preparation.

After making pre-print paste the recommended way, I found I didn't like it nearly as much as my original home-grown method. Here's why: the urea (a humectant, meaning it holds moisture) made the paste nearly impossible to dry -- even with a hairdryer. And even after the dye was "dry" on the screen, it was kind of rubbery. So it never dried through and through. Consequently, many of the dye areas peeled off the screen after a few prints were made, rather than deconstructing little by little. The final print paste basically lifted the dye off the screen and deposited chunks on the fabric.

This purple piece began with two different shibori baths, then I discharged it with dishwaster gel, then printed it yesterday.

I love these little squares -- I use this pattern quite a bit. The foundation fabric was LWI dyed.

Here's one where I painted thinned thickened dye (is that an oxymoron?) right on the screen.

The pattern for this piece was made by pulling dye over a screen that was laying on top of some of that kinky cut paper strips stuff used for packaging. This fabric had also been LWI dyed.

This piece never actually made it to the deconstructed print phase -- after prepping a screen with a dishmat, I turned the mat over onto a previously dyed fabric and monoprinted it.

Tomorrow I'll post photos of a small landscape quilt I made for our home, that I completed today.