Heat transfer processes - day 5

The final day! We started out with a review of what everyone had done so far - and there was some wonderful work on show! People felt that having the review in the morning, rather than at the end of the day, helped them figure out what to work on for the rest of the day - whether to follow a particular technique, finish things off, or start thinking about a project that might arise from this course. I ended up doing a bit of each of these.

Rescued from being left behind in the drying cupboard, this easy-peasy screen print was made with strips of newsprint laid down; two screens vertically and one horizontally, with turquoise and black pigments - all done very quickly -

I did some other printing in turquoise (not terribly successful...) and this one was done at the end, to use up the pigment - it could be a book cover "or something"?

These old samples turned up recently - hand stitch from the 90s and a simple but irritating lace pattern knit in icelandic wool, which was purposely shrunken in the washing machine -

They got the foiling treatment -

front - solid foiling, colour pewter

back - using the "skeleton" left from other foiling

Adhesive was added by lightly rolling on with a sponge roller - trying
to avoid getting much on the background; it's pretty much foiled
everywhere, though the camera doesn't pick that up

Another bit of foiling, inspired by seeing the wild work other people had done -

previously screen printed; more light rolling with the sponge roller was added,
and odd bits of foil were overlapped on the stencil-screened areas

This course has made me realise that I'm happiest working with "a system" (or a plan, or an intention) of some sort - and that it's good to be WILD some of the time!

Another bit of finishing up was using phototransfer onto two more colours of linen, to add to the collection of fabrics that might one day turn into something - my working title (or, thinking title) is "Up a Lazy River" - and it will be a long, thin landscape format -

The photocopies I'd brought in finally got painted (in pairs) with various colours of disperse dyes - the newsprint laid underneath the painting looks like it might be an interesting transfer in itself, or cut up first?

Having tried out all the colours available, I had some sheets left over, so I painted one of the pair with a blue and the other with a yellow, then laid them together so the paint mixed, then left them to dry -

turquoise on the left, royal blue on the right ... or was it the other way round?

The colours of the disperse dyes (or of transfer paints) look very different on paper than when they are transferred to cloth - I'm looking forward to trying out a small sample of each, and then writing the colour on the back of the paper. They need to be ironed onto synthetic fabric, and can be cut or torn into shapes. I don't have any ideas for this yet - the challenge is to develop the "travel lines" in yet another way (something wild perhaps?).

The main project for carrying forward uses heat setting and, in these samples, the dye sublimation papers -

satin and other synthetics; top right has been printed on both sides before folding,
others are printed on one or both sides after folding

The fabrics have been folded (and pinned) and pressed. That heat-setting can be done at home with an iron on synthetic fabrics, apparently ... but the papers won't give such strong colours with an iron. Perhaps the strong colours won't be important; the project could take many a different turn...

The working title is "Map Folding" - because even though the creases and configuration are very definite, it's not all that easy to get them back looking as pristine as the original! I envisage these "pages" in a box, a loose sort of book object, able to be lifted out and opened, to see the new configurations of the squares, or just out of curiosity if there's something hidden in the folds [there could be]. Some of the fabrics are stiffer and/or crisper than others - yet the floppiest can spring back into shape most readily. 

To finish, some views of the room in action. We were fortunate to have so much space!