Fabric Painting & Block Printing

Block printing is a method of printing textiles by stamping ink-dipped blocks—usually made from wood or linoleum—onto fabric. This technique is one of the simplest ways to create custom fabric at home. … This amount of control gives you a chance to create fabric that is unique to your project.

BLOCK PRINTING AT HOME – Step by step process

1. Step 1 Prepare the fabric. …
2. Step 2 Stretch the fabric. …
3. Step 3 Blocks. …
4. Step 4 Use paint/ dye. …
5. Step 5 Saturate sponge in paint. …
6. Step 6 Blockprint the fabric. …
7. Step 7 Final result.

Woodblock printing on textiles is the process of printing patterns on textiles, usually of linen, cotton or silk, by means of incised wooden blocks. It is the earliest, simplest and slowest of all methods of textile printing. Block printing by hand is a slow process.

Simply mix the medium with your paints and roll onto your block! Here’s how: Mix your Block Printing Medium with acrylic paint in a ratio of 3:2. If you want to print in a specific colour, mix your acrylic colour first and then add your medium when you‘re happy with the shade

Traditionally, block printing was used to print fabrics. This process involves sketching and carving a design into a block of wood, applying ink or dye, and stamping it onto a finished cloth. Block printing differs from weaving, where patterns are woven into a fabric as it’s created.

Fabrics to Use

Plant-based ink is a go-to when block printing, and it works best with cotton, linen, hemp, bamboo, polyester and, in some cases, nylon. For true beginners, Hewett says to use blank, unprinted fabric so the ink absorbs evenly. ( Boundless Cotton Fabric is a great option.)

To prepare, lay out your printing paper or fabric on your workspace. Now squeeze a little bit of ink onto your palette paper. Using the brayer, roll out the ink so there are no blobs or bubbles. Then get a thin, smooth layer of ink on the brayer, and roll it across the cut side of your printing block.

Block printing can be used for many purposes, including:

• Fine art prints.
• printing lengths of fabrics (look at examples of Indian woodblock prints)
• greetings cards.

What supplies or materials do I need to make a block print? The basics include a carving tool, block (linoleum, rubber or wood), block printing ink, a brayer (roller), paper and a big spoon.

As Carl Zigrosser has written, “The print is created through contact with an inked or uninked plate, stone, block, or screen that has been worked on directly by the artist alone or with others.” There are four main categories of printmaking: relief, intaglio, lithography, and screenprinting.

Water based screen printing inks are great inks to work with when it comes to block printing on fabric. Oil based inks can be used as well, but are better for use on paper. I prefer using water based inks for my fabric printing, mostly because oil based inks are stickier, more smelly, and dry much more slowly.

The Various Types of Printmaking

• Intaglio Printmaking. An intaglio printis one where the image is printed from a recessed design incised or etched into the surface of a plate. …
• Relief Printmaking. A relief print is one where the image is printed from a design raised on the surface of a block. …
• Lithography. …
• Serigraphy(Screen Printing) …
• Monotype.

There are five main methods of printing a fabric, these being the block, roller, screen, heat transfer and ink-jet methods. The heat transfer method differs from the others in that it involves the transfer of color from the design printed on paper through the vapour phase into the fibres of the fabric.

Printmaking is an artistic process based on the principle of transferring images from a matrix onto another surface, most often paper or fabric. Traditional printmaking techniques include woodcut, etching, engraving, and lithography, while modern artists have expanded available techniques to include screen printing.