Experimentation Final product | DR2007

Scarves and other techniques

DINH HAI YEN on 24th November 2018

Other than the white Cherry Blossom scarf, I also wanted to make 4 more. My concept was Oriental in general, and I want to represent the 5 elements – water (white), fire (red), plant (green), earth (yellow), metal (black). Also, all the objects found in each scarf are things that are very Oriental and special to specifically Asia – crane, lotus, koi fish, lantern and cherry blossom. For these 5 scarves, I used a variety of techniques to create 2D effects on fabric with minimal usage of 3D effect to maximise the feeling of fabric printing – bleaching, transfer printing, calligraphic painting, thermochromic painting, and velvet etching.

I. White Cherry Blossom scarf – calligraphic painting and resin casting

Details about the making of this scarf can be found here:

Final Project – Cherry Blossom – W.I.P

II. Black Koi fish Scarf – Bleaching

For this scarf, I used bleach as my paint because I realised that the effect from my previous bleaching experiment looks really cool and the colour is perfect to replicate koi fish. Thus I diluted the bleach and worked within 1 hour rush because the bleach works very fast and I had to work evenly. I then washed it thoroughly with soap and let it air dry.

III. Red Lotus scarf – Velvet etching

I wanted to recreate velvet etching on red velvet because it reminds me of red paper cut – a very Oriental and Asian thing. Thus I tried to paint lotus and leaves. I let it dry overnight then iron it. However, the velvet was polyester, thus it didn’t work and only left burn mark. Though it was not a success, it does create a nice effect that is subtle and elegant.

IV. Green Crane scarf – transfer printing

I photoshopped some crane PNG that I found online and printed reversed on TCT3.1. I then followed the instruction for heat press transfer printing on textile. At first it was quite a bit of a failure because the white base was not present, and the transparency was too strong. After some trials and errors and very long trimming, I managed to control the temperature and adjusted it to create nice effect for the cranes,

V. Yellow Lantern scarf – Thermochromic painting

While brainstorming on what to do for yellow, I thought that lanterns will go really well with this colour because of the typic “lantern in Mid-Autumn night” feel. I remembered that thermochromic ink can create the invisible effect and is available in red and blue, thus I thought that I could mix some purple for shading and paint them manually to recreate the scene of lantern shining bright then disappearing and fading away. Sadly, while painting the scarf, my phone was low on battery, thus I couldn’t take any photo of the W.I.P. But below are some close up of the details.

Exhibition during End of Semester show:

Final Project – Cherry Blossom samples

DINH HAI YEN on 24th November 2018

For making the cherry blossom samples, I have used in total 7 techniques to replicate the cherry blossom flowers

Resin casting
Thermochromic painting
Smocking
Paper crepe folding
Hot glue molding
EVA foam shaping
Plastic fusing

I. Resin casting

More details of resin casting process for the flower petals can be found here:

Resin – Experimentation and Final Project W.I.P

Fig.1, 2, 3, 4: Process of resin casting to make the cherry blossom petals – weighting, stirring and adding pigment, dropping and curing.

Fig.5, 6, 7: Cherry blossom resin petals and final result

II. Thermochromic painting:

I realised that red hue thermochromic paint is a really pretty colour which suits cherry blossom really well, thus I want to utilise its ‘invisible and disappearing’ properties to recreate the characteristic of cherry blossom flower – beautiful but fragile and ephemeral.

Fig. 8, 9, 10: Painting of cherry blossom flower using thermochromic paint: 1st layer – 2nd layer – crimson paint dot and flower disappearing because of heat to represent the blooming and withering flower.

III. Smocking

I used a variety of pink and red colour felt for this technique, I cut out small little circle with diameter around 5cm, then I did a simple stitch around the circle edge, gathered them together at the center. I use the left over thread to create creases and it formed the 5 petals.

Fig. 11, 12, 13: Smocking process: Circle cutting, gathering and creasing, final sample

IV. Paper crepe folding

I also realised that the one material that closely resembles cherry blossom flower and petals is paper crepe which is commonly used to make pompom flower. I simply squished and twisted the paper to create further imprints and then cut out petals

Fig. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 ,19: Paper crepe petal process: stretching the paper, twisting to shape, release, folding and cutting, assembling petal and final sample

V. Hot glue molding

I happened to have this flower petal making mold because I was doing some baroque/roccocco decoration in the past. They are silicone mold for cake decoration, mainly used for fondue and hot chocolate shaping. My theory was: if it works for hot chololate, then hot glue should not be a problem. It was fairly simple to use: Squeeze the glue into the mold, apply firm pressure evenly and the form is done after the glue cools down (1 minute). Then with a bit of trimming and painting, the flower was done.

Fig. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24: Hot glue mold process: squeezing glue into the mold, applying even pressure, let the glue cool down, trimming, final painting and assemly

VI. EVA foam shaping

I have always been working with EVA foam because of its great characteristic: durability, versatility, heat manipulation reaction and surface smoothness when heat is applied. I used pink EVA foam and cut out petal shape. Usually I’d use heat gun to apply heat, but the petal was too small so I did not want to risk burning my finger while heating (also because I was lazy to set it up), thus I used my iron and high heat. I sandwiched the petal piece between wax paper, ran the iron on top and slowly pulling it away to start forming the shape. I used my thumb and index finger to create the bump and pinching.

Fig. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30: EVA foam shaping process: cutting, trimming, ironing, shaping and assembly

VII. Plastic fusing

I used pink plastic bag and cut it into some parts for trial and errors. I layered them with the plain pink side facing outside. I sandwiched it between wax paper and applied the iron. The plastic fuses almost immediately so my first batch with 2 layers were more or less burnt with holes. The 2nd batch was 4 layers, worked well with no burning, but it was too thick and stiff, and it was too smooth. The last batch using 2 layers worked best because I was careful with timing, and then I just need to cut the shape of petals out.

Fig. 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36: Plastic fusing process – Ironing and cutting

As the final application of the samples, I photoshopped the sample into scarf templates that I found online to represent the rendering of the scarf if the samples were used (All with the exception of resin petals because I used that for the final scarf)

Fig. 37: Sample rendering onto scarf

Final Project – Cherry Blossom – W.I.P

DINH HAI YEN on 24th November 2018

I took my inspiration from the Cherry Blossom because I wanted to do something that is Oriental and special to Asia, thus the cherry blossom was one of the first thing that came to my mind. At the same time, I also thought about calligraphic painting of cherry blossom because it is an art that is very special to Asian countries and East Asian countries specifically.

Fig. 1, 2: cherry blossom calligraphic painting

Fig. 3, 4, 5, 6: Cherry blossom examples

I wanted to make a scarf, because to me scarves are fashion items that are very versatile. They can be folded, stretched out or hang over the body. Unlike other fashion item, scarves to not need to have a form to fit the body, hence it is a perfect rectangular canvas for decoration and creativity. For the final product, I want to make a scarf that mimics the calligraphic painting of cherry blossom tree and flower, thus I wanted to make the tree using calligraphic painting strokes and flower from resin droplets, because cherry blossom flowers are usually painted using dots made by the tip of the brush in calligraphic painting.

Fig.7: Concept for final product

I started out with making the resin flower petal first because it took time to cure. Documentation of the process can be view in my Resin journal:

Resin – Experimentation and Final Project W.I.P

While waiting for the resin to cure, I started working on the painting. I bought Shandong fanse white silk from Brighton in Chinatown and cut it into halves to prepare the canvas. Also, I cut out a small piece to first try out some testing. I used black acrylic ink from Daler Rowney because it doesn’t bleed and is waterproof once dry, thus it is my favourite brand.

Fig. 8: Bamboo calligraphic painting style for warm up

When working on the big piece, I made sure to have at least 3 layers of towel paper underneath to prevent staining on the table, and luckily it did not. I worked on this piece using only 1 big brush, and kept switching back and forth between the 2 trees to allow the ink to dry before applying more.

Fig. 9, 10, 11, 12: Cherry blossom tree painting – finish product and hang to dry

Once the resin petals were completely cured overnight, I used hot glue to slowly glue them on the branches. Each flower consisted of 5 big petals and 1 small bud. For some other parts, in order to replicate the budding flower, I used those petals that looked like water droplet or trimmed down the big petals to create the bud shape. It took 2 batches of resin to fill up all the branches with flowers.

Fig. 13, 14, 15: Flower arrangement on the scarf

Fig. 16, 17, 18: Close – up of the flowers

Product photo shoot of the scarf was done with the help of my friend Hiroko as the model

Fig. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 : Cherry blossom scarf – final product photo

Fig. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31: End of Semester show exhibition

Fig. 32, 33: Cherry blossom scarf together with 4 other scarves using a variety of techniques

Resin – Experimentation and Final Project W.I.P

DINH HAI YEN on 24th November 2018

I was absent for the resin class, thus I tried it on my own. I have done resin casting before in the past so it was not a foreign process, however the resin I used was industrial type, thus its quality was way different from Easycraft – the brand I used for my trial and also final project W.I.P

Firtsly, I used a kitchen weighing scale to measure 2 exact halves (according to the brand’s instruction). I then used the wooden handle of the brush to pour the hardener into the resin part and stir them well. I then use Crimson acrylic ink from Daler Rowney to add in the red pigment to replicate the pigment of cherry blossom in calligraphic painting. The ration was: 20g resin, 20g hardener, 20 droplet of crimson ink.

Fig. 1, 2: Measuring of parts and mixture stirring

I then use a dropper and dropped the resin into droplets on top of wax paper. The mixture hardened really fast, within 1 hour half of the resin was already viscous and very hard to cast, thus I learnt from that and on the second batch, I revamped the ratio to 10g resin, 10g hardener and 10 droplets of crimson ink.

Fig. 3, 4, 5: Droplets of resin and the first batch

The end result was much better than expected. The resin was mostly clear, though some still retain bubbles because of the air inside the dropper and from the mixing (even though I made sure to take out the bubble and tapped on the dropper to release air). The colour is crystal clear unlike hotglue and soft enough to be trimmed using scissors unlike the other type of resin (probably because it is DIY resin for art and craft).

Fig. 6, 7, 8: Final product

Also, it’s funny how some of my droplets trapped a bug inside because they thought that the resin were candies

Fig. 9: “Bug amber” resin

Fieldtrip – STPI

DINH HAI YEN on 24th November 2018

The trip to STPI was an eye-opening experience. We got the chance to learn about the artist as well as his inspiration. At the same time, we also learnt about STPI and things that we never know about Singapore’s printing and art industry. I think the most awesome and inspiring thing was visiting the workshop at the basement, where we learnt about the process and witness the masters at work. Sadly no photo was allowed but nevertheless it was an interesting and unique experience.

Knitting

DINH HAI YEN on 24th November 2018

Knitting was a super fun class because everyone was suffering with the first rows and the subsequent rows. We prepared yarn and double tip needles, and we learnt that we should have used bigger needles and yarn because it was much easier. We learnt the basic knitting technique first.

Fig. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: Basic knit

We also tried the reverse knitting. It created a much more softer and smoother look because of the reverse stitch. Also, it doesn’t create wrong or right side because of the reversal

Fiber etching and Bleaching

DINH HAI YEN on 24th November 201824th November 2018

I. Fiber etching

Fiber etching works using the specific type of etching liquid that removes fiber, hence the velvet needs to be a mixture of both rayon and silk. We first prepare our velvet (which was very tricky to buy in Singapore) by steaming its surface, then using a silkscreen and sufficient amount of etching liquid, we slowly applied evenly throughout the entire velvet and remove the screen. We left the velvet to dry over a few days, and the liquid starts eating up almost immediately. We ironed on the reverse side til the thing turns golden brown, and then we used our finger nails to slowly scratch it out. The parts that were sufficiently applied came off very easily, but it was very dusty thus we had to use masks. And lastly we washed it and let dry.

Fig. 1, 2, 3: Process of preparing the velvet, using the silkscreen and the velvet right after application

Fig. 4: Velvet after ironing and removing the fiber

II. Bleaching

We used black and dark colour fabric for bleaching. We diluted the bleach into a spray bottle using half water half bleach ratio, and spray with some pattern created using rope and strings. The concentration of the bleach was the tricky part because the concentration could affect the speed of the bleaching and the whiteness of the bleach.

Fig. 5: Initial pattern

Fig. 6, 7, 8: The initial pattern did not really work because there were too many folds, hence I took out the elastic and hold it by the corner instead

Fig. 9, 10: Final product – before and after drying

Thermochromic ink

DINH HAI YEN on 24th November 2018

Thermochromic ink reacts with heat. When heat is applied, the ink turns transparent. When cold air is applied, the ink reverts back to its original colour. For thermochromic ink making, we mixed 2-3 parts of Beta with 1 small spoon of the thermochromic powder then mix the mixture up. Then, we used silk screen and applied it to our fabric. The paint dries quickly and the thinner the layer, the faster it disappear when heat is applied.

Fig. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: Mixing preparation – Beta, cups, wooden stick and mask to prevent breathing in the fine powder.

Fig. 6: Final product

Field trip – The Magic Touch workshop

DINH HAI YEN on 24th November 2018

The field trip the Magic Touch workshop was really eye-opening. Not only does the conductor taught us about the difference between RGB and CMYK, he also taught us a lot about printing technologies and techniques. For example, RST is such a versatile type of paper because it can be used without applying heat, thus very useful for instances where a heat press machine is not available.