Art Diploma Blog Ellie Fisher: 12th October Exposing My Screen And Dying Fabrics

On Wednesday 12^th October, I continued to complete my tracing design layers for my final repeated design screen for the project "Natural World".The tracings were created through separate layers and exposed in the textiles workshop to create the final screens ready to be printed onto. My final design layouts have been inspired and collected from my research, mood board, artist research and visual sheets. The task allowed me to develop my final designs through tracing and emphasising the areas required for the screen to work correctly with the chosen colours. Also, the task allowed me to develop my skills and understanding of exposing screens for printing within the textiles workshop. It has allowed me to gain confidence and work independently to create my final screens accurately and demonstrating each layer. The outcome of the workshop is to combine all the screens together to create one final print which shows all the individual colours accurately but also complementing each other on different surfaces and samples. Also, within the workshop textiles I have continued to develop further skills and techniques which included dying fabrics onto cotton. Throughout the task, I have gained minute samples and experimented with different colours and tones through the chosen material cotton. The overall task has allowed me to gain further knowledge in textiles through completing samples and experiments for the project "natural world".

To complete my tracings, I continued to use black pen to highlight all the areas of the design which I wanted the paint to be transferred onto. A problem, I faced with completing the layout was that light was still coming through the design which would affect the screen when exposed. To solve the problem, I used a china marker to cover the areas required which contributed to covering the outlines better on the surface. Once completing all of the layers, I transferred the tracing paper into the textiles room to be exposed onto screens. Whilst, in the textiles room I gained knowledge and skills of the method exposing screens. To start the task, I collected my coated screens which I completed previously in the textiles class and placed them into the vacuum form machine with my tracing paper faced down. After placing the elements into the machine I used the air condition to remove the air away from the screens to transfer the designs together. Next, I pressed the exposing machine which used light to transfer the tracing onto the surface of the design. Once the process was completed, I placed the screen into the wash room and used the jet wash to remove excess coating to reveal the design. Once the screen was completed I placed the screen into the light to see if the design was transferred through and once they were successful I placed them into the drying cupboard. I repeated the process twice to complete my individual layers and screens.

Exposing Screen

Outcome of Exposing Screen

My prepared screen ready to be exposed

Outcome of my exposed screen

My tracing outcome of my bee design

Whilst in the Textiles room, I completed another technique which was dying fabric onto cotton. I experimented with a variety of colours and shades onto minute samples of cotton and I will continue to develop these samples further into my project outcomes. I was curious to explore the task I haven’t used this process before and I believed it will inspire me for future projects and developments within Textiles. Whilst handling chemicals and dyes, I followed health and safety instructions throughout the task to avoid the risk of injury when using them. Firstly, gloves were worn to avoid contact when handling and painting the cotton. Also, aprons were used to avoid the chemicals getting into contact with clothes and skin. Finally, hair was tied back to avoid the risk of chemicals damaging hair. These instructions were maintained throughout the task. To transfer the dye onto the fabric I used a paint brush to cover the whole area of the fabric. To experiment with the samples I used a variety of colours to identify what dyes I can use for further projects and within textiles. All the dyed samples will be developed into my project as I will be creating screen-prints onto the surfaces.