3 Words | Textiles Development

[layered textiles (faux silk and calico) 

made from the '3 words' workshop]

So today I decided to produce some samples from the digital prints I have been designing this past week. I printed of 5 A5 designs (twice) on the transfer paper, and then using a variety of materials from faux leather and suede to nylon to muslin, I used combinations of the prints to create an array of samples. The materials that the prints showed up the best on were the neoprene and the nylon jersey. Some other fabrics I found in the scraps didn't show up as well. this could be due to them being natural fabric (the ink won't stick to the fabric) or because my printed design was fading with use. I printed each design out twice as the more you use each paper to print the less colour is left, having each pattern twice meant I got double the use out of each print. Unfortunately, I didn't increase the contrast enough on some of the black and white images, and the prints came out a little lighter than I planned. This however, worked really well on some of the fabrics, but on others it hardly showed up at all.

I found a thick lace material that looked like a laser cut piece of nylon, once printed on it gave some great effects and I will experiment more with this material. Through either layering it on top of other materials, or embroidered into it to add more to the designs or enhance colours.

Tomorrow I have planned to go back to the prototyping and make up some embroidered textiles of the previous designs I have created, this will hopefully include (if it isn't too complicated) the Francis Bacon black and white piece, and the print design from the Bacon collage.
I would have loved to design a laser cutting of the Bacon face, however as I haven't used either illustrator nor the laser cutting machine, so within the time frame it will not be possible for me to design my own file. This is a skill I aim to learn, and will preferably teach myself over the Christmas holidays so that I can develop this project further in my own time.