Art League Class - Screen Printing for Textiles

March 8, 2009

This past Wednesday was the last class in a five week series at the Art League in Old Town Alexandria which I taught. The small class of six explored Thermal fax screen printing, freezer paper stencils and photo emulsion screens using thickened H dye to screen onto the fabric. Additional photos of the class at work can been seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/26565842@N06/sets/

The next five class session, Surface Design: Screenprint for Textiles, will begin April 14, 2009, at the Art League.

http://www.theartleague.org/school/course_desc.php?class_id=13189

Due to heavy snow, the first scheduled day of class was canceled and students were emailed a Notan design assignment to get them started. Jeanne's designs inspired additional black paper images for photo emulsion printing.

Judy used thermofax screens to print her fish image on napkins she had dyed in a low-water immersion class. She maximized space on her print surface by rolling half of the napkins.

Sharon worked with her Thermal fax screens and a leaf image.

Paula's good design sense came through on her Notan designs with a wash of lavendar.

Jeanne used her Thermal fax designs to print on her immersion dyed fabric which she will stitch into a blouse.

Sarah used a stone pattern placemat

to print this deconstructed image in red and black.

Zita's Notan design, screen printed in deep red, compliments her shibori dyed scarf.

New Image: Variations on a Theme

Well, it is official. I'm not a very dedicated blogger. I thought, at a minimum, I'd make it back here at least once a month. Guess not. Maybe it was the long recovery period after my Paris trip. I still should report on that, huh.

At the moment, I'm writing to let you know about the December issue of Elan magazine which features an article about an exhibit by the New Image Group, to which I belong. Unfortunately the show came down today, so you have missed your opportunity to view the exhibit. You might, however, be interested in the article, "Variations on a Theme" by Trudi Van Dyke. Check it out!

Sidewider Dawn 2005

Also, I will be participating in the Corcoran College of Art + Design's White Walls Holiday Sale on Thursday, December 11, 5-9 pm and Friday and Saturday, December 12 & 14, 10 am - 3 pm. Hope you will have an opportunity to stop by!

If you have time, I've posted a new set of photos on my Flickr site of students' work from this semester at the Corcoran. In addition to the classes I teach at the Corcoran which will begin at the end of January , I will be teaching a five week "Screen Printing on Fabric" class for the Art League at the Madison Streen Annex beginning Wednesday, January 28 from 10 am - 3:30 pm.

The longer day will give lots of time to play!

Assuming I probably won't get back here before the new year, best wishes for the holidays!

Indigo and Screen Printing at the Corcoran

In the class I teach at the Corcoran College of Art + Design, students explore the possibilities of the indigo vat with multiple dips. The process begins with a clamped resist and a good soak in water.

One of many patient dips in the indigo vat.

Waiting for oxidation.

Great results!

In the Design, Color and Experimentation class at the Corcoran, student learn to work with photo emulsion in the screen printing process. Both color and design are important for successful results. Here are some examples of students work.

Jane has used string to help with registration of this Notan created design.

Ambria's very successful leaf design provides for a little leeway when it comes to registration.

Using the color samples created in an earlier class, Ambria has folded under the edges where the squares meet in anticipation of piecing together the squares after the fabric has been processed.

Lisa has created a design of her original fabric created with a potato dextrin resist printed with a CD as a stamp, photographed the fabric and made a photo emulsion screen. The newspaper on the fabric acts as a resist over freshly printed thicked dye to prevent dye pickup on the back of the screen. Lisa is using the screen to create a random repeat of her design.

Work in progress.

Patty has created an interesting pattern emphasizing the positive and negative shapes created by her interpretation of the Notan project.

Nahanni's use of leaves on the back of the screen was a quick and easy resist resulting in a successful repeat pattern.

Fabric needs to dry, be steamed and washed out. Dyes being used are Procion H.

The randomness of deconstructed screen printing can produce some amazing compositional results as in Zita's piece.

Detail

Next week brings experimentation with gold leaf and paper lamination.

First Blog

What better way to start a blog than with a glorious photo of one of my favorite activities...Celebration Day at the Textile Museum. In conjunction with the "Blue" exhibit showing in the Museum, I was asked to conduct a shibori dye activity for the day. Here husband Mel is pinning up another square dyed by one of the nearly 300 participants that beautiful day in June 2008.

Hmm, now am I committed to regularly posting here? We will see. Maybe I'll try adding some favorite links to make things a little more interesting.