Reactive Dyes

This week I feel like I have really utilised my time in the print room, using every second to my advantage. However the print room takes up a lot of time to produce the tiniest amount of work, and is often demoralising when you have put a lot of time and effort into something that has taken all day, and you are not overly satisfied with the outcome. This is why I feel maybe digital prints are more my type of thing. However I have found it fun and interesting to experiment in the print room as this is what textiles is all about.

So today I concentrated on Reactive Dyes. This is still a very simple way of mixing dyes, using a small amount of dyestuff with a little bit of water added. I then used this dye to paint straight onto a clean screen. Using a clean screen allowed me to develop different motifs or backgrounds without the restraints of my exposed screen. So today I focused on creating a background. The fabrics which I used to do this were a variety of silks, I feel that the reactive dyes are much more vibrant when used on silks n comparison to cotton which develops a much more subtle colour.