Tag: etching

Scarves and other techniques

DINH HAI YEN on

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:

Fiber etching and Bleaching

DINH HAI YEN on

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