Chiodi's Textiles Blog

I have never done anything like this before so when finding out I had the opportunity to use the dark room I jumped at it.

It is such an exciting easy process which is quick and you can achieve amazing results.

The night before I collected lots of different leafs, twigs, flowers and some lace to take in to the workshop with me.

You begin by setting up your layout on the photo paper. It was good to move things around and explore different compositions. Once you are happy you press the button the light comes on for 5 seconds and then you are ready to do the next step.

You place your photo in to the first tray of chemicals and almost straight away you see the photo developing. It is exciting as you have no idea what it is going to turn out like.

You then move your photo along the trays dipping them in to each chemical and then finally washing it all off.

The process is so easy, I really enjoyed it. I am looking forward to taking more objects and experimenting with different things to create new results that can link in to my future projects.

Wet and dry was interesting as we got to experiment with loads of different media and items to see what the outcomes where.

Here are a few examples of what I did with bleach.

For this I used coloured tissue paper and painted with bleach. I was fascinating to watch the bleach strip the colour so quickly. It reminded me of the magic pens I would use as a child.

This experiment was using bleach on a blank page then waiting for it to dry. Once dry I painted with ink on top. As you can see in places the bleach came through but in other parts it is very faint. This might of been because I had put more bleach in areas so it was stronger.

This last bleach sample I inked up the page then when it was wet I painted the bleach on top bud as you can see the bleach spread and bleed in to the ink.

This piece I find really fascinating, I didn’t know that ink would react with salt and create a crystal sparkle to my work. I liked watching the salt suck up the excess ink. It was drying out the page quickly. I think when I try this again I would like to have a stencil so I could make shapes better with the salt rather than just sprinkling it on.

I then moved on to using different papers so I tried tissue paper with glue and ink. I like using tissue paper as a material as it is so easy to work with.

The picture above was glue painted on to the tissue paper then ink dripped at the top then scraped down the page using a plastic knife. I like that where the thicker bits of glue are the colour has dried darker.

It take the colour of the ink well allowing it to be vibrant. I also like the way that if you have a few layers on tissue paint on the top one the ink transfers through the layers and creates new patterns. These pictures show this technique.

These last couple of pictures show me using crayons with ink over the top. I found these samples easy and basic, I want to take them further and try adding in bleach and salt or maybe a different paper to see if the results change.

I also found a scrap of material and crayoned on to it then ink on top. I found that the fabric soaked up the ink quickly.

The last picture shows a technique that I hadn’t done before where to paint this blue liquid on to the page let it dry paint over it and then when that’s dry scratch off the hard jelly stickiness. Where that was the shows up as the original colour of the page.

I have always loved heat transfer from when I was first shown it in foundation. I think that it is a really easy and quick way to transfer detail on to fabric.

The process is so simple

– paint your paper with ink

-wait until it is dry

– place fabric on top

-sandwich between newspaper

-place in the heat press for 40 seconds roughly at 200degrees

You can create so many different interesting things with heat transferring. You can do the basics but you can also place objects in between your inked up paper and fabric to get a relief. Different objects and textures can be really fun to experiment with.

I didn’t have time to collect and try different objects so I stuck to painting up designs on fabric and pressing them on different fabrics to see which I likes the best.

These to designs where both done on a sheer fabric meaning that you could layer them up and see both designs coming through.

On the bottom design I painted to pieces of paper and places the fabric between so the design was on both sides.

With this heat transfer I would have liked the colours to stand out more. I used a fabric that dulled down the colours. Maybe to get a better result using that fabric I could have on over my drawing a couple of times so it have multiple layers of ink to make the transfer colour stronger.

This is another sheer fabric except this time it is coloured. I pressed this once and then flipped the fabric round and pressed it again to create a shadowed look.

This last one was done on lace and like the one before I pressed it twice to see if the colours would still be as bright and to get an over lapped affect.

Learning the process of how to do batik was exciting as I hadn’t done it before.

First we stretched the fabric over a grid and then we were allowed to begin drawing with the wax. I quickly realised that you have to work quite fast due to the wax drying quickly. You also have to be aware of the drips, in my first piece their were a few drips and splodges but I worked with them and tried to incorporate them in with my work.

After you have draw with the wax you let it dry for a few seconds then you can begin painting the ink on. I found that painting when painting with the ink I wanted the ink to spread and disperse more but it didn’t so the marble mix affect I was going for didn’t truly work.

To get the wax out of the fabric you sandwich it between newspaper and place in the heat press for 10 – 20 seconds. This allows the wax to melt and go in to the paper.

You can see in the pictures that the white patches are where the wax was. I would like to try covering large areas of fabric with wax then cracking it and then painting on the ink. I would like to see if the ink would go in between the was and create new patterns.

Next time I am going to take designs that I have drawn and work from them when drawing with wax. I want to aim to get more precise drawings that are more intricate and delicate.

When Sian spoke about herself and told us her journey i realised that it takes a lot of steps to work out what exactly you want to do.

When she was young and in school her style of art was painting she tend to copy peoples work such as Van Gogh. However when she graduated her style had changed and she was a typographer which then lead her to be a graphics designer. However she was always interested in colour, shape, and illustration.

Through experiencing lots of different jobs in the industry she finally decided to open up her own interiors business. Working for yourself is the best way to get your own creation out there without being changed. The current theme they are looking at the moment is to do with geometric shapes.

I respect the fact that Sian tried out lots of different areas before finding what she loved. I am looking forward to doing this within the course, i want to try out different techniques and processes to then discover what i love.

This Monday we looked at deconstruction and reconstruction, we took our previous collages and photocopy them so that we could then change them.

I took my photocopies and started cutting them up and rearranging them in a different order. I twisted and turned them, and stuck them down. I then began to sew into the new collage. I found this really difficult as the paper was thick and I didn’t have the correct needle. Trying to sew in a neat line was also hard as the paper isn’t as flexible to move like fabric would have been.

For my last collage I weaved wool through it as, it linked back to what was in the original collage. This was a lot easier than sewing as I could just punch holes in the paper and thread the wool through.

I enjoyed this task but I found it very similar to the first collage task.

We also worked around tables in groups almost but we worked individually. I find working around tables with others distracting rather than working in my own work space. I feel that this is something that I need to work on better.