Printing Today

I spent time today printing once again.  More monoprinting, and roller printing.

The first fabric was low water immersion dyed mid last year.  Today I made several prints of the same ilk over the fabric.  This photo already had one print made on it.  The next photo shows a printing plate ready to turn over onto the fabric; the third photo is the same fabric printed the second or third time.

I have numerous surfaces on which to apply paint for the monoprint -- a sheet of plexiglass, a sheet of tempered glass, four small pieces of glass with taped edges, 3 or 4 mil clear plastic, and transparencies.  I like the transparencies and clear plastic best, but each has its uses.

Monoprinting means to create a printing plate that is used once.  You ink/paint the plate and print off just like that, or create designs in the paint on the plate with any number of things, and then print.  Or you can apply just a bit of paint in specific areas of the plate, and then print that.  Which is what I did in this first two series of photos.

The second set (the circles below) is the same idea.  This time I monoprinted with paint on fabric that I printed with thickened dyes a couple years ago. 

What I've been using for paint is a combination of small tubes of acrylic paints from a cheap set I bought a while back, Lumiere, Dynaflow, PearlEx, Golden GAC900 Textile Painting Medium, and Aerotex Extender Base.

I've discovered that I don't particularly like Dynaflow paints for most of what I do, so I've been using them up to thin the regular acrylics.  And also adding either the GAC900 or the Aerotex, both of which will leave a softer hand on the fabric than straight acrylic paint would.  The GAC900 is quite a bit thinner than I'd imagined; I suppose it's primarily for more controlled painting work on fabric.

I bought the Aerotex a while back from Dick Blick to use to release Caran D'Ache watercolor crayons rubbed on a printing screen (Linda Colsh calls this technique "deconstructed rubbings").  I just haven't used it for that purpose yet -- maybe soon!  It's a much less viscous acrylic medium, leaves the fabric a lot softer than regular acrylic media.  My first experiment with watercolor crayons released with acrylic medium made very stiff fabric that I ended up throwing away.  Hence my search for some other kind of printing medium to use on fabric.

Invariably when I print, I gravitate away from plates and right to the roller.  I love roller printing.  Load the foam roller with paint (or thickened dye) and apply it straight to the fabric.  I like rolling over fabric with something textured underneath -- construction fencing, flat plastic things, rubbing plates, hand cut stamps.

The last four images are roller prints.  The first and last of those four were done with a roller that has felt dots adhered to it.  The last piece is done on paper.

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