Fabric PrintingWelcome to the Fabric Printing Project Lesson! Please click on the links below to learn about Fabric Printing and to acquaint yourself with the various skills and techniques of Printing Fabric. Fabric Printing From A Collagraph Plate 2 Now that you have watched my demonstration videos, you are ready to apply your own talent to this wonderful fabric printing technique! Fabric Printing Materials List What you will need: Muslin, cotton or any natural fibre fabric work best, but polyesters and synthetics are OK, too. Old clothing, curtains, pillow cases, sheets, are great for this project. Smooth surface for painting on: Glass, plexiglas, metal or a plastic breadboard, anything that has a smooth surface. You will be using it for painting with acrylic paints which will stain the surface, so don't use something that you won't use for anything else. Click on the logo below for your Fabric Printing Art Kit, available at Dick Blick Art Supply--I have chosen the best materials at the lowest cost for you!
Please note: You will need an iron for pressing the printed fabric (preferably an old iron that you don't care about, but if is your iron you use for pressing garments, paint or glue may stick to the iron's surface. This can be removed by setting the iron at a low temperature and applying paraffin or wax then rubbing the plate with a clean rag or paper towel. You know the size of your smooth surface. Cut the fabric two inches smaller than that printing surface. For instance, if you are using a piece of plate glass that measures 8" x 10", cut your fabric into 6" x 8" squares. Ready for Fabric Printing? Good! Let's begin! In my video demonstrations I have placed several acrylic colors on my paper palette. Basically, if you put down 1" x 1" dots of yellow, blue, green, brown, black, red and white, you will have all the colors you will need to produce a great printed fabric! Now, you are ready to paint on the smooth surface. What do you want to paint? In my video demonstration, I am painting an abstract design. I am interested in color interaction, brushwork and texture. What do you want to do? Perhaps a certain image is appealing to you. Is there a landscape scene, a portrait, a certain pattern or design that you would like to use? Or maybe you would just like to be "loose" and painting whatever comes to your head. I like to work this way. Anything you like is perfectly acceptable because your images and subject matter will relate to your end purpose, which will be--what? A quilt, a wall hanging, a collage that you can frame, or wearable art like a dress or t-shirt! So begin and when you have completed painting on the smooth surface, you are now ready to take one of your fabric squares and press it down on what you have painted. Make sure that you press down and cover the total area with your hand. Now, lift the paper off and look at it. Are you surprised at the reversed image? Here's some ways of developing your techniques of fabric printing! Moistened some of the fabric squares by holding them under the faucet, then pressing the squares between two towels. Now, paint the smooth surface with your desired image and print the squares. Now, print the smooth surface again and try dry fabric. What is the difference and what do you prefer? Usually, with natural fibers the images that you painted on the smoot surface will transfer more readily because the fabric is more receptive. But, interesting things happen with polyester and synthetic fabrics, too! You decide what you want to do and adjust your materials accordingly. So let's do more printing! The key here is to develop a "vocabulary," a collection of images on your squares of fabric that you can use for collages, if you want. These images that you develop can also be displayed by themselves, if you prefer. In my demonstration videos, I show you how to press the dried printed fabric squares you have created. This enhances the images for single presentation or for collage. It is up to you to decide how you want to use your printed images. I recommend printing at least a dozen images. This process will acquaint you with the painting and printing processes and develop your skills in fabric printing. Remember, the more you create, the more you know, and the more you know, the more you can enrich your creative being (and that is an awesome thing!) Keep in mind that with fabric printing, you can develop your images towards several directions: wall hangings, framed artworks, quilts and wearable art, to name a few. Perhaps you have some ideas of your own! On my Free Online Art Classes website, I plan to include as links several websites that are good resources for introducing you to what other artists are doing in the areas of fabrics, fabric painting and fabric printing.
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