Dry Run

As part of the out-reach associated with my exhibition at Expressions I am to teach a two hour workshop with senior students at one of the local schools. Two hours is not very long to get something done, especially with dyeing techniques, so this week I have been doing a dry run to work out whether what I intended to teach was feasible.

The school has silk screens so I shall get them to paint and print a blank screen using Procion MX fibre reactive dyes mixed with water. These should dry fairly quickly (hopefully it will be a warm day). We will then screen these on to a soda ash prepared fabric using sodium alginate (Manutex). They will need to batch overnight and next day they can wash them out.

In preparation I did some printing with the dyes on to paper using a variety of objects. Then I prepared a screen with a dye wash and some dye printing. Once dry this was screened with the clear sodium alginate (Manutex). I shall also offer them some sodium alginate coloured with dye as well.

Here are the samples of printing, on paper.

My screen, dry and ready for screening. It looks quite pale at this stage.

The end result on calico (muslin). I think they should be impressed with the possibilities.

I shall also take a screen prepared with textures embedded into sodium alginate and demonstrate how to do repeat screenings (Breakdown Printing).

Just two days to go now.... I feel somewhat in limbo!