more deconstructing

The playing with/experimenting with/learning deconstructed screen printing continues. To keep things simpler, I'm using just one color of Procion Mx dyes--khaki. That started, I admit, because it was out. But I like it and the way it breaks down.

There were some lousy attempts when I explored what would happen if you just painted the thickened dye on the the back of the screen--rather than screening it through--and letting it dry. The answer? Not good things, in that there was too much goop there and it came off in globs and there was little patterning.

Another thing I have learned is that it is hard to judge what they really look like when you first print pieces--the thickened soda ash can throw you off as to how much dye and texture is there. So you have to wait until they are batched and washed out.

And burlap makes a nice texture to screen into--basically a grid, but an uneven grid, an organic grid. Let's go to the pictures (these are representative of successive pulls on similar screens--IOW, I did two screens the same, hard to tell which print came from which screen):

© 2010 BJ Parady

© 2010 BJ Parady

© 2010 BJ Parady

Pretty cool, huh? I see a lot of potential in these pieces.

These just had scrim scrunched up on the screen:

© 2010 BJ Parady

© 2010 BJ Parady

I'm not sure where all of this leading, but even in the experimental stage I'm getting usable fabric. It's messy, requires some time, but the results are worth it.