Breakdown Printing

Around all of the disruption in the studio I have managed to produce some really lovely pieces of cloth using breakdown printing. (I have produced some ugly pieces too!). I start by spreading thickened procion dyes onto the back of silkscreens then embedded various objects including metal joining plates before leaving to dry. On a nice sunny day this only takes a couple of hours. But I live in Manchester so sometimes I have to dry the screens indoors overnight. Once the screens are completely dry I pull through with plain thickened paste. Sometimes I keep the prints separate and quite pale. Other times I print off until the screen is completing spent. The printed cloth is left overnight to batch then washed out. Wonderful!