Art and Design A comprehensive guide for creative artists - Aaltodoc

Let us have a review of some essential tools, equipment and
material, which may be necessary for decorating a fabric:
Printing blocks Dyes and inks Fixatives
Wax Scissors Brushes
Needles Iron box Tracing paper
Textile/fabric Printing paste Cleaning rug
Paper-stencils Thread Clean containers
Pegs/pins Printing screens Squeegee
Pens or pencils Razor blades Paints or pigments
Ssegantebuka (2003, 24) in more enlightening; he suggests
printing by using improvised materials like:
Yams (stems and tubers) Dry leaves
Cassava (leaves and tubers) And any other textured material
Banana stalks, leaf stalk and Sweet potatoes (leaves and
a banana flower
tubers)
“So the learners are advised to use locally found materials
for their practice ...” In a similar way the learner should also
be encouraged to discover local dyes from plants—and
locally; from found natural materials such as soil or earth
to decorate fabrics. According to MacDougall (1999) “job
number one for any ink is to stick to the substrate and the
rest follows.” We can conclude from this that necessary inks
used for the time of decorating fabrics must be able to stain
or infiltrate into the fibers to aesthetically unveil satisfactory
surface decorations.
Here is a table illustrating a brief review of inks, which can
be used to decorate fabrics from MacDougall's (1999) Screen
Printing:
Inks Surfaces
Special
formulation
Inks
Printing paste
Are used on fabrics by ways of screen
printing. Such inks can also be used on
plastics, adhesives, metals and glass. They
are generally provided by authorised ink
manufacturers. For example Sadolin paint.
Such inks are water based and they are
good for painting or printing on opaque or
dark fabrics. Printing paste is easy to fix by
ironing. It includes clear, opaque, metallic,
gold and matt.
Expanding ink
(puff)
Discharge inks
Solvent based
(Water based)
inks
This is a type of printing ink, which is
generally mixed with additives of plastisol
inks. When expanding ink is printed on a
fabric; and then Ironed (up-side down),
the inked areas (emboss) form a bulge or a
rounded swelling.
Such inks operate by removing colour from
distinct surfaces of a fabric. It is actually
bleach. Discharge inks are especially good
for printing on natural fibers like cotton
T-shirts, casino gaming tables and for
making vintage prints.
These are water based inks used for
decorating fabrics by ways of screen
printing. Such inks can comfortably
penetrate any desired substrate. They are
resistant to washing and dry cleaning. And
they are ideal for cotton and synthetic
fabrics as well as paper surfaces
Decorating fabrics can also be done with natural dyes. In
an article from National Gardening Association (2003), “... the
dyes necessary for printing decorations can be extracted
from a rhizome plant. The plant produces a turmeric powder,
which can be prepared to creatively decorate fabrics. Other
plants include the coreopsis yellow flower, from which
orange colouring dye can be equally obtained.”
Apart from that, “green dye can be made from carrot and
spinach leaves as well as, from a golden marguerite flower.”
The learner should try new things and discover more about
types of inks and dyes necessary for decorating various
surfaces of fabrics like natural pigments from plants and/or
animals.
Methods of printing on fabric surfaces
The methods used to attain decorations on a fabric are
numerous.
In the opinion of Green (1964, 14), “the first series of direct
prints can be made from natural leaves, feathers, wood
and any other materials using a simple principle of relief
printing.” This is one example of teaching simple methods of
printing to decorate various surfaces. And indeed, some of
the mentioned—necessary materials are easy to obtain.
168 169