Textiles No.2

Creativity takes courage......

4th December 2014

"My Curves are not Crazy'  Matisse.

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2014/matisse/

Digital textile printing is defined as: any inkjet  based method of printing colourants onto fabric. This is referred to when identifying either printing smaller designs onto garments and printing larger designs on large format rolls of textile.

If Matisse had had access to sophisticated image manipulation software combined with the immediacy of printing directly onto large organic fabric, would he have chosen this as another method of  channelling his creativity?
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1999.363.44

The session today led again by Sean (using a strange German accent) and assisted by Becki (shiny and golden). The process of printing directly onto cloth by hand I found was painful and time consuming. Screens were coated with light sensitive emulsion then exposed to ultra violet light and washed out - as with the silkscreen process. Using a positive drawn onto mark resist film and/or printed onto "Folex' the image was transferred onto a screen. 

textile print onto paper

textile positive

I chose to use mark resist film and a JPEG file to produce a textured figurative image; to attempt a more traditional textural single 'curved and crazy' body form and a repeat pattern from a Photoshop file which was printed directly onto fabric.

Pulling a print

The traditional way to print onto fabric required pinning out the cotton fabric of varying degrees of thickness onto the textile table to keep it flat before printing, and this was tortuous. I actually was  Sleeping Beauty pricking my fingers at every turn, then nodding off - due to the carnage my 'pinning' stage took thirty minutes. Talk about 'Harmony in Red'.  After which dye pigment and binder was added to screen and the ink was pulled across the mesh and onto the chosen fabric or paper surface.

Digital Textile print 'My Curves are not Crazy2

Harmony in Red - Matisse (oil)

Meanwhile, by comparison, at this point, my large scale repeat pattern figurative design (created from my original painting, repeated in Photoshop and saved as a JPEG image) had already been transferred onto my chosen cotton fabric and was well on its way to the washing machine to fix the dye and dry out. It was like magic!

'The attraction of 'soft art' the comfort of cloth, both tactile and visual. The subtle shadows formed by the hills and valleys of the surface'.
Linda Colsch Textile Designer

The digitally printed fabric was much more complex and accurate to replicate on computer, although less 'authentic'. However, it was the immediacy of this form of image production that was so exciting and gave rise to infinite possibilities. I had at my bloodstained fingertips the power to produce an array of images with a complexity which I would have found impossible to replicate in any other way.



The work of Linda Colsh www.lindacolsch.com  whose complex surface design uses a combination of digital, stitched and layered media is an excellent example of the flexibility and versatility of digital printing methods.
www.textileartist.org

The theme running through my work is the human figure and its undulations, secret curves and soft hollows. I have looked to the work of Matisse as my inspiration and drawing from life have interpreted my own ' landscape of the human figure' using the drapes and folds in cloth. Fabric appears to be the perfect medium for creating and constructing my own form of humanity.  No more pricking my fingers and sleeping for a hundred years for me! Watch out Prince Charming (you know who you are!)!.