Block printing - a shoe that fits

 

My romance with block printing began a few months ago, and my obsession is starting to blossom into a solid friendship! I feel as though I'm starting to get to know the process a little better. I’ve bought some kit that works, and so far I haven’t produced any masterpieces, but every now and then I stumble upon something that really excites me. It’s a shoe that fits, combining my love of textiles with a background in art & design.

I do not have a class or mentor to turn to for advice and inspiration, so I have had to begin with processes that I am familiar with and innovate a little.

I started with a sketchbook. I chose one I really loved because I remember how much I enjoyed working in one during my design course at University. It was a little indulgent at almost £15 after P&P, but here it is, already thick and grubby, smelling of ink and paint. My very own sketchbook.

Making my own blocks began with a piece of lino from my Speedball block printing starter kit. The stuff was rock hard and as difficult to cut as I remembered from school art lessons! Made worse because I forgot about the trick of warming it with a hairdryer... Well, when that ran out, I was delighted to accidentally purchase some Soft Cut from eBay (I thought I was buying lino – amateur!). This stuff is brilliant, carves like an eraser, and allows me to do fine detail that I could never achieve with traditional lino. I have used old bits of wood as backing to stick my finished designs to, making printing much easier and more uniform.

A brief foray into the world of rubber stamping inspired me to try backing my designs with acrylic off-cuts. The main advantage of doing this is you can see where the edges of the design are, making repeats much easier to align. I’m a bit sad that I’m almost out of acrylic now and have no idea where to get some more! Will cross that bridge...

I’m still experimenting with craft foam for making larger, less detailed blocks. It holds the ink really well and I’ve managed to make designs that would be impossible in one sheet of lino, due to size and cost. I have designed this motif to print my son some curtains. I’m thinking navy on white would work well, but for now I’ll have to imagine as I don’t have enough white fabric for that project.

I bought a range of different inks to test on fabric and settled with Deka oil based block printing inks. In the UK they can only be bought from George Weil and are not cheap, but gave by far the best result for what I’m doing. Downside: they don’t make magenta! A big deal for someone who has a little weakness for a particular shade of plum purple that can’t really be matched by mixing any other colours in the range. If anyone out there knows of another brand of fabric block printing ink please get in touch or leave a comment...