last few days of print...

A few shots of the print process for my final project for the year.My challenge was to transalate a handpainted border design(see below) into a seamless repeat pattern and handprint a 2.5m length of fabric.
Technically the repeat was quite easy to do but the actual printing of it took a long time.I three screens to work with and about 8 colours in my design.Normally in industry you'll have one screen per colour!
So after a LOT of testing and failing and trying again and finally succeeding I used a combination of polychromatic printing (which is handpainting the screen using the dyes first and then printing with a clear paste to push the dye into the fabric) and direct screen printing to acheive a fairly good trnasaltion of my original design!The textile peeps reading this will feel my pain but for any non-textile geeks,hope you enjoy the photos!



Original handpainted design


One of the three screens,ready for printing


The painting begins.Handpainting using reactive dyes into the exposed part of the silk screen

Trying to achieve a watercolour effect through handpainting.VERY TIME CONSUMING!

And finally...the print onto ( 100% gorgeous silk habotai)

A view of the repeating design.I had to wash out my screen and re-paint after each print.Phew!exhausting but immesley satisfying.I absolutely LOVE what I do.

The background ombre on the fabric was also handpainted.Getting the colour gradation right was challenge #101!