Friday, March 6, 2015

Monoprinting and Eco-Dyeing Together

Some of my latest projects have involved dyeing t-shirts and other wearables.  Over the Christmas break I had sun printing some shirts, but this time I tried monoprinting in conjunction with eco-dyeing.

I bought some cotton t-shirts and singlets from a major retailer and pre-washed them to get rid of any manufacturing residues.  I then inked up some leaves using my oil-based etching inks and printed them onto the shirts using my etching press 'Thumper'.  After air drying I put them into the dryer for a bit  of 'heat' setting, though I'm not sure if this was necessary.  I then did my eco-dyeing using leaves collected from my recent camping trip to Northern NSW, having pre-mordanted (ie soaked and dried without rinsing) the shirts in soy milk.

I'm happy with the results, particularly as I didn't need special fabric paints or additives for the etching ink.

During the printing and dyeing process I also worked with some Nepalese handmade paper to make some lovely notebooks.  Heaps of fun!

Two of the completed shirts, monoprinted and ecodyed.

The singlets, monoprinted and ecodyed.

A leaf with metal objects and the subsequent print from the dyepot.

I love how this leaf has been embossed from a metal object in the dyepot.

Some of my notebooks, with monoprinting and ecodyeing.

The detail of a fern monoprint, with ecodyeing providing colour
and interest in the background.



1 comment:

  1. Love your work. Thanks for sharing the tip of printing leaves first, then ecodyeing.

    ReplyDelete