Manutex prints

S A M P L E S 

Last week we had a tutorial on manutex printing and right from the beginning I knew I would enjoy it when it got round to my turn. And I was right. 

So far I have spent far too long in the print room for the meek amount of samples (good ones at that) which have been produced. I was very disheartened by this and since printing and sampling I have at least recognised where my strengths do and don't lie. 

On the one hand, pigment printing and using my motifs, I can forever try but I don't think I will ever use it for a whole project as I am too impatient. I seem to smudge or ruin every single one. On the other hand however, I have really enjoyed allowing my colours from my colour palette to just be enjoyed simply as they are and spending time creating various backgrounds instead. 

If I could do this project again, I now know that I would space my motif's out much more on my screen as one of my biggest problems in trying to screen print was that I could not see anything through the screen when trying to position it correctly. This therefore made it extremely hard to be accurate and completely shattered my hopes of a perfect pigment print.

However, when I tried manutex print using reactive dye, I realised it was much more for me. Brighter colours... Vibrancy... Bold... Interesting! Here was my first go with my mini's

As I said above, I really enjoyed creating my own backgrounds. I found that once printed they surprisingly looked almost digital. I much preferred this type of printing as I could multi task more effectively, I knew I had to wait for the screen to completely dry and so I would leave it overnight so by the morning it was ready to use. Time management was much better and I was much less impatient. 

The print above was my best print... 

Right up until I ruined it. After being so worried that my print wasn't actually going to come out, I had forgotten to double check the handbook and didn't realise that these dyes would not work on synthetic fabrics. You can imagine what happened next... After steaming, I washed my fabric ... cold... hot and soapy... cold and by that time, there was no colour left! All I had was a blank piece of lilac fabric once again

 At least I now will never forget again which fabric goes with which dye.