A Day Mono Printing on Fabric
I spent the day with my friend Leslie. We were creating prints that will be used in a Skype session in the ‘Laterals’ embroidery group next week. I had not mono printed on fabric for many years and was keen to see the results. The group are very keen embroiderers and we were interested to see how basic acrylic paints (and not textile paints) would take on the fabric. They worked fine. The differing fabrics produced different textures of course. The lighter the fabric the clearer the image. We also did several layers on some pieces. The linen really soaked up the paint.
I was using a ‘Geliplate’ for my prints as it is easy to use, wash and actually print without a press. Last year I did a whole series on what I called layered monoprints’ but I read the other day the other word is ‘serial’ monoprint. It is kind of funny as ‘serial’ and ‘mono’ do not seem to go together. The series was called ‘Beautiful Weeds’, as I was looking at the plants that escaped from the garden into the nearby National Parks. I also referred to them as ‘exotic aliens’. These works were layers of monoprints using acrylic paint. In some cases there was at least 5 layers and the paper was almost like vinyl. I then stitched varying editions beside each other using a basic colour theme. These can be found in 'previous work' in this website.
But I digress. For my prints I rolled up two primary colours of say blue and red. In one series I ‘marked’ the plate with stamps or wrinkled glad wrap and then printed. The second series, the fabric was put lightly on the plate and lines were ‘drawn’ across with a rubber brush or pen. I then pulled a second print without any markings. With this method the first print had the appearance of a traditional ghost print and there was more contrast between the colours and white and the so-called second ghost print took up more colours.
Ghost print or second print
Researching monoprints we came across a guy called Dan Tirells who was printing using plastic bags. The ‘ink’ was spread on the bag then pressed to the paper. We used fabric. Strips of paper and eggshells were also included in the mix as a mask. The crinkle sound of the eggshells as you pressed the plastic on to fabric was quite satisfying. We used black Screen print ink which was decidedly more messy.
Monoprint using screen printing ink with added stitching.
Monoprint using screen printing ink with added stitching.
We were also interested to see how the prints would take to stitching. There was no dragging or the feel of ‘plastic’ with the acrylic colours. (and they were cheap ones from a European based supermarket) The needle and thread went through the fabric with ease.
Monoprint using glad wrap as texture using acrylic paint with added stitching
