Screen-printing Block

During the screen-printing block, we had to produce six printed samples for our assessment. We had to screen-print using dye paste instead of pigment binder. These dyes could only be used on silk which had to be heat fixed in a steamer once the prints were dry. As I had screen printed previously using pigment based binders, I found using dye pastes quite challenging. It took much longer to mix up colours, so I found myself having to mix colours from communal pots which had already been diluted. As a result, I felt like I didn't have much control over the colours that I used or that I wasn't able to experiment with colours as much as I would have liked, given the limited time we had to produce our samples. One positive quality of dye pastes however, is that you can achieve quite a painterly effect with them, especially when mono-printing onto glass or perspex.

I wasn't that pleased with the samples I produced in this block as I felt like I had made wrong choices while experimenting, and didn't have enough time to correct the samples or start afresh. If I were to do this block again, I would make even more stencils and multiple copies of the same stencils so that I could print the same motif in different colours/textures or overlay different motifs to make richer designs.

Below are some of the swatchbook drawings that inspired the printed samples.