Screen Printing In The Print Room - The Science Of Textiles.

Today has been the long awaited day! Finally screen printing in the print room! Although my 4th screen is not ready it already looks amazing without it. I shall show you step by step what I did today in the print room! I dyed some A4 sized fabric mostly light silk but also some cotton and muslin. I used the same colour's and techniques as I did for my background colour samples (the one's on the A5 sized fabric) I like the idea that every sample will be slightly different as the techniques I used would be impossible to try get every sample the same.

After dying my fabric's and leaving them to dry I then used masking tape to stick them down to the printing table, I did this so that when I print on them they do not move or stick to the screen when I lift it up. 

After I had masking taped four samples to the printing table It was time to print my first screen. The reason I did four samples at once is because my screens are so big, This is a bonus for me because I can do four samples at a time which saves me time. The first screen is the pink screen. Mixing my colour's was difficult as I needed to mix a pink which wasn't a neon pink but wasn't a really light pastel pink, It had to be somewhere in the middle and it needed to mix well with blue to make a nice purple as the blue screen would go on top of some of the pink. 

I managed to make the perfect pink which would show up on all the samples even the ones with a lot of pink in the background. I did this using Brill pink 5BTL and Orange pigment's.

I made this blue colour with Blue B and Turquoise 4G pigment's. This blue really compliments the pink I mixed as well as mixed well to make a lovely purple colour.

Now was time to print...

First the pink screen...

I really liked how this came out, Its really excited to see my work coming to life and me being in control of it. I was a little concerned at this point that it looked a little bit flat though. The next step was to add the blue screen and see how that looks...

This is the first finished set of sample's. As you can see I have printed the blue screen which has created purple also and I have printed the dark green screen. The screen which is currently not exposed is the light green which is placed behind the dark green, I shall do some samples with this screen at a later date although I really like it without it at the moment. I am very happy with how these samples came out and how the colour's have taken to the fabric's. The next step I did was taking the rest of my samples I had dyed the background's of and masking taped them to the printing table. I was nervous and excited to print these samples as they were my favorite background samples and I hoped the background did not over shine my print.

This is what my second lot of samples looked like after printing the first screen (pink). I really liked these samples much better than the last lot of samples because they do not look as flat. 

This is what they looked like after I had printed the blue screen which also introduces the purple. I really like this as it looks quite digitally done in the background and I would personally wear this print and background as a scarf.

                       

As I did not take a picture of the completed samples as I was busy cleaning my space where I had been working as it is important to leave the print room and table very clean for the next person using it, So this photo is in different light but you see how the green screen came out. I really really love each of these samples and I am so impressed with my self, All the time I spent on my tracing really paid off and it really goes to show if you put the work in you will see results! If you are wondering how to screen print, There is a separate page on my blog where you can read about it, You can get to that from my homepage. 

In conclusion I have had a really productive day in the print room and I really enjoyed the outcome's. Tomorrow I plan to go into college and sample my holographic heat transfer paper onto my samples and to create some more samples in different colours for experimentation. 

I hope you all enjoyed reading about my experience in the print room printing my samples for my final major project and I hope it inspired you all! 

Thankyou for reading! 

S/S14 Print and Colour Trends

As part of my research for the Moo designs live project i am currently doing, I am researching into Spring/Summer 14 colour and pattern trends. This will help me with my visual sheets and my colour theme as the garment needs to be on trend. Using pinterest i found pictures of forecasted S/S14 trends. 

Monochrome is on trend for spring/summer this year. In the brief of my project it states that colour scheme has to be monochrome with one other colour which can be used as little or as often as i desire. My focus is to research colours on trend for s/s14 and see which i can relate to most via my mood board's, to develop after my visual sheets.

I can relate to warm tones in my work, as coral, shells and some jelly fish have warm tones in them.
My personal favorite out of this picture are the pastel pinks.

 Pinks are on trend for S/S14. From pastel blush pinks to hot pinks, everyone seems to be loving them! I can easily relate this to my work, as you can see to the left the picture of pink shells and pink and orange beautiful jellyfish. I could choose pink to be my contrasting colour in my colour scheme but i would have to think about the shade of pink and what would look best. I can experiment this on my visual sheets.

The jellyfish and its texture is very inspiring, the texture and shape of the tentacles could easily be created with fabric manipulation.  I do not know if this is something i would like to do for this project but it is certainly inspiring for future projects.

 A pattern trend forecast for spring/summer 14 is a jungle/tropical themed print, These prints include a lot of green which can be related to my project by sea weed, the idea of monochrome and green does not appeal to me and i think i will be staying away from that combination. 

It also looks like floral is coming back in! The colours in this picture are amazing, the orange, yellow and pink dress shows all the on trend colours and patterns in one. The dress on the lower right is my biggest inspiration, using colours from the jungle/tropical theme yet still keeping a few warm tones and floral in there too! I like the idea of using orange as a contrasting colour with the monochrome, i think that could look good. But yet again same as the pink i would have to test this out.

Pastels have been in fashion a while now, but they are not going anywhere. Pastels are on trend for S/S14.

In conclusion to this blog post, i will experiment with the colours i have researched. I will use them for my visual sheets as they almost all relate to my project. I am enjoying balancing fashion, print and colour trends with my surface design studies very much and i really enjoy doing these kind of blog posts that i have to research into.

What next?

My next blog post will be an in depth post about how i did my visual sheets and the colour i will develop to use as the contrasting colour to go with the monochrome. 

Thanks for Reading.