Flour paste is easy and inexpensive and creates organic lines—crackles, words, and even drawings. Paper stencils are immediate and perfect for a short printing session or for printing single images. Water-soluble glue withstands several printings; it dissolves as you print, so every image is slightly different from the one printed just before it. Soy wax can be applied with a brush or a stencil—or even a tjanting tool. Once the printing is complete, hot water washes the wax away. Voilà! Your screen is clean and ready for the next print run. Inexpensive and addicting, these screen-printing techniques are a must for the fiber-artist’s surface design toolbox.
Jane Dunnewold has been an influential textile artist for more than 20 years and is the author of Complex Cloth. She teachers and exhibits internationally, and her awards include Quilt National, the Quilt Japan Prize, and the Gold Prize at the Taegu International Textile Exhibition. Jane maintains Art Cloth Studios, as exhibition and teaching facility she shares with a group of artists in San Antonio, Texas. She also chairs and teaches in the Surface Design Studio at the Southwest Craft Center and serves as Vice President of Outreach for the Surface Design Association.
Materials
Blank silk screens (To make your own, you need: wooden frames; sheer, taut fabric for the screens—such as a curtain sheer; a staple gun; and duct tape.)
Textile paint or fiber-reactive dyes
Fabric (preferably 100% cotton, silk, or rayon)
Squeegee
Scissors
Old newspaper
Freezer paper
Pencil
X-ACTO® knife
Iron
Water-based glue (such as Elmer’s® Glue-All® or Elmer’s Washable School Glue Gel)
Electric skillet
Soy wax
Paintbrushes (dedicated to wax use), 1" and 2"
Flour (basic white)
Water
Skewer
Sponge or sponge stamps
Optional
Tjanting tool
Thermofax® screen
Discharge agent