Printing, breaking down and dyeing

Hi guys,

The title of this post pretty much tells you what I have been doing all this week :p Yes, I have just finished the second week of the skills carousel I am currently completing at uni.

We started the week by learning about dying. This was pretty interesting as it is something I have never really done before properly (just with kool aid on some wool! :p). We learnt how to colour match- to dye fabrics to be the same colour as seen in a picture or painting etc. Then we practised some different dying techniques such as ombre (a gradual colour change from light to dark up/down the fabric) and patch dying (different colours of dyes applied/layered onto the fabric in a blotchy way).

Here is my ombre sample:

And here is my patch dying sample:

patch dying is a good method to use when breaking down as it can make things look old and distressed  depending on the colours you use.

Talking about breaking down, that is what we moved onto next. We all had to pick an image of a character wearing a broken down costume from a film or play. I chose my image from the original piranha movie as I love that film :D

Here was my shirt before it was met by sandpaper, fabric paint,  a Stanley knife etc.:

And here is it after:

I am really proud with how it came out as breaking down was something I found quite challenging at times. You have to try and be realistic and make things like the blood look realistic and build it up in layers- I am not great at art/painting so it was quite hard to get something that didn't just  look like a halloween costume I made in 5 mins! Even the stages you have to curve at the ends and fray slightly so they don't just look like you did then with a knife. I liked putting my shirt on once it had dried- I felt like an extra from the movie :p

And now last but not least printing. Again something I had never done properly before but and it was a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting experience.  Cutting out my stencils were a bit fiddly but in the end I was happy with the effect/pattern I achieved, and it was cool to play around with the metallic paints, foil and puff paints.

Here are my finished samples and printed tshirt:

Next week I have a reading week so I can prepare more work and research but then after that is wigs... so that should be interesting to tell you about :p

I hope you all had a lovely weekend,  talk to you again soon!

Bye xxx