Transcripts
1. Welcome!: Hey there. I'm Liz, I'm the leader of Prints & Plants. I'm a food illustrator and printmaker and I am so excited to welcome you to Beginners Guide to Fabric Printing. If you've never touched printmaking before, then this is the class for you because we're going to walk through everything step-by-step together. In this class, we'll cover how to create a design that has oomph and impact. How to translate that design into a custom stamp. We'll go over two different inking methods. How to apply these skills and hands-on techniques to future printmaking products. Lastly, the materials that I really love to use in this process. As a beginner printmaker, it can feel pretty overwhelming with all the options of materials. So I've broken down a few of my favorites and that list is attached in the class description, so you can download it, and I have direct links for where to purchase everything as well. It'd be great if you have your materials ready to go, so we can go through this step-by-step together, and if you don't and you just want to get the overview, that's great too. Welcome to the class and let's get started.
2. Materials Overview: Before we even start the printing process, the thing we need to do is get some good materials in hand and these are some of my favorite materials right now. Of course, starting with just the simple pencil and paper for creating our initial designs and drawings before we move into the printing process. Once we do move to the printing process, you'll need a linoleum cutter. I especially loved the Speedball Number 1 set, which includes five different blades. This is what it looks like and all of the blades are included and stored in that handle. You'll also need a linoleum block. I have come to love the Inovart Eco Karve block because it's super simple to carve, it's really smooth. It's moves like butter when you're carving. They come in a variety of sizes. They come in packs of two so it feels like two for the price of one essentially. It's also made from recycled material. For this project, in particular, a fabric of your choice, the only exception is no nylon because the fabric ink doesn't interact well with nylon. Maybe it's a blank t-shirt, maybe it's a blank tote bag. In this demonstration, I'm going to be using a blank dish towel. For ink there are two different options, two different routes you can go, you can go with Speedball, water-based, non-toxic fabric ink. This is my favorite because I love the printing process using this type of ink and I'll go over that later in the class. But you can also use a stamp pad and I recommend something that is meant for fabric and paper. Ranger Archival stamp pad is one option and you might even have that lying around already. You'll also need some sort of inking plate, something to put your ink on if you are using the Speedball non-toxic ink, and I like to use an acrylic sheet that's slightly larger than the block size I'm going to be printing. In this case you could use an eight inch by ten inch acrylic sheet. Lastly, to heat set your ink to make sure it's permanent, you'll need an iron or a dryer. I've made a materials list of all of these materials and that list is linked in the class description and it includes links over to shops where you can buy everything so that you can go ahead and get your materials ready to go to take this class and if you don't have them yet and you want to just watch the class and see the process and that's great too. Now that we're ready with our materials, let's get started.
3. Design Size: Before you start any part of your design process, you really want to think ahead to that end product and think about what size you want your design to be in relationship to the rest of the fabric that you're printing onto. So thinking about if you want to use the full space of that four by six inch block, or if you want to create a smaller stamp from that four by six block. For example, since I'm using a dish towel today as our example, here are two designs that I've created previously to give you an idea of how different sizes might apply to different designs. In one towel, I wanted a large image on one corner so that when it was hanging over a countertop or folded up, this is the main and only image you would see. However, in the other design, I wanted a repeating pattern all over, which is why I created smaller stamps. I carved one stamp for each of these veggies, and then stamp them all over the fabric in an alternating pattern. This takes longer but has a different effect, which can be really visually pleasing when the towel is unfolded. With your fabric in mind, decide which size stamp you'd like to create. If you do decide to go with the smaller size in this four by six block, it's really quite simple to make that change happen. Simply measure the area that you'd like to carve the smaller stamp size that you desire with a ruler and a pencil. Let's say instead of four by six, you want a four by four. Since this is already four inches this way, let's look at this and make your four inch mark this way and this way, and then just make that line right there. Then you can simply to get that size down, use a sharp kitchen knife to saw on that line and cut until you're at the point where you can break it. This linoleum is soft enough that you can really use a tool that you already have on hand in your home to chop this part off, so that you're just left with that four inch block.
4. Design with Oomph and Impact: Awesome. Now that you've decided on your design size, it's time to start designing. This is a really fun part of the process because there's no commitment yet, you can just play and have fun with different drawings. I really love to create at least three different drawing designs before I start carving so that I have options and I can play with an idea over and over again before I commit to putting it onto my linoleum block, and that's what we're going to do right now. To begin this process, take your block and trace its exterior onto a blank sheet of paper with your sharp pencil, this can just be printer paper. This is your frame and the size of the stamp that you will be carving and working with. I like to trace the block a few times onto my papers so that I have many different iterations to work with. Your initial drawing is like your roadmap, it's going to give you all the information you need as we progress in this process, and you really want to be clear about what you're including. When you're making your initial design sketches, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, relief printmaking lends itself really well to high contrast, so think about light and dark, inked spaces and no ink on spaces, different textures. You can really play up the sense of contrast with large geometric shapes, different textures filling each section of your design. Another thing to note is that if you're a beginner, keep it simple, don't get so overly lost in minute detail that you lose the bigger picture. If you're being inspired by a really detailed plant or flower for example, think about what details you can leave out and how you can simplify that design. Because once those teensy tiny lines are transferred onto your block to be carved, some of the detail might be lost as a beginner just because the lines are so small and you're learning new tools. Sometimes with this type of really smooth soft block, the ink can actually push down into tiny tiny crevices and muddy the lines. Just think about how you can add some interest of detail without overwhelming your design with it, at least at first. If you want to get deeper into detail on how to make that work with your prints, join me for future classes here on Skillshare, for more advanced printmaking. Another thing to think about with your design is texture. You can really add an impact by creating a sense of contrast with different textures across your design. You can imagine using different shapes, different carving blades which we'll get to when we go over how to carve, and use of line in many different ways and areas of your drawing. For example, you can see in this drawing how each section has a different play with different design and texture, so imagine that as you work with your own design. Another thing to take note of is that some of you who have heard of printmaking but maybe haven't tried your hand at it, have heard that everything in printmaking is backwards and it definitely is an exercise for the brain. But as you draw your design don't worry about anything reversing, just draw as you normally would because I have a trick that I'll show you later on that doesn't end up with anything being backwards in your print. Last but most certainly not least, when you begin to carve your stamp, everything that you carve away will reveal the surface that you are printing on. For example, if you're printing on white paper, everything you carved away from your block will be white on the final stamped image. If you are printing on a light blue dish towel, everything you carved away from your block will be light blue. The only part of the stamp that will catch your ink is that top surface that remains. Just keep this in mind as you design, and then as you carve later on. Your initial drawing is like your roadmap, it's going to give you all the information you need as we progress in this process, and you really want to be clear about what you're including. Here's a pro tip. In your sketch, because your sketch is your roadmap, fill in the spaces you want to be inked with your pencil. Really fill them thinking about that those are the areas that are going to be inked, and leave the areas that you want to be carved away empty. Even go as far as to write a C in the spaces that you want to carve away, in other words the areas that you don't want to receive ink. This is really helpful once this drawing is transferred to your block because it provides information for where you're going to carve and what you're going to leave present to be inked. I've had plenty of instances where I've done a drawing and haven't given myself that information, thinking that it would be fine once I started carving, and then as soon as I was in that process, I would forget which parts I wanted to leave out, which parts I wanted to include, and my head would get all confused and I would miss having that roadmap. Really give yourself that information with that initial drawing so that you can know once you're in the carving process. Another tip is to be really confident in your drawing, confident in your pencil lines. If you make them too light or sketchy feel, they won't translate as well to your block once we move on to that step. Even if you start with some light pencil lines, make sure you go back over them and really have confidence in what you're creating. Because if you put that pressure onto the pencil, that graphite will transfer to the block better later on when we get to that step. Once you have about three designs, snap a photo of the one that you're going to move forward with in this printing process, and upload it to the project section on this class so that other classmates can give feedback, so that I can give feedback and really cheer you on.
5. Design Transfer: Pancake Method!: Now that you have your design, your drawing, the real fun can begin because this is where the printmaking starts to happen. The first step from drawing is to transfer your design to your block using, what I like to call, the pancake method. This is the trick that I was telling you about earlier that prevents anything in your drawing from turning out backwards once you print. This is a loophole that I didn't know about for a really long time, even though it's super simple, and I was always running into getting my letters backwards and my drawings backwards. This sidesteps that issue so that you can have a really clear transition from your drawing to your print. Have a pencil at the ready. Near the edge of your table, place your blank on linoleum block into the frame around your drawing, making sure all those exterior lines line up. Now using one hand on top of the block, slide the paper block sandwiched to the edge of the table and use your other hand to hold the paper to the other side of the block. Now flip it like a pancake, and keep your hand that is on the paper, on the paper, holding it to the block. Now depending on how dark your pencil lines are, you can use your pencil like a rolling pin. That transports the graphite to your block. Go back over certain areas using your pencil to darken. A little tip, once you all are pro print makers, which you're well on your way to be after this class, is that you can skip that drawing step in the beginning. Once you're more used to all the materials and everything, you can draw directly onto your linoleum block. I always do a drawing on paper first because I like to play with different options, with different composition, and how things are laid out in the design. It can be tricky to erase pencil lines once it's on linoleum, so I like to have options before I commit but that's your call.
6. Carving! Lino Cutter Anatomy: Okay, awesome. Now your design is on your block, which means it's time to get carving. First, a little anatomy of the linoleum cutter. This is the number one set and if you jiggle it, you can hear that noise inside. That's because all of those blades are kept in the handle, which is pretty handy, get it? You can see inside there's five different blades and you can pour those out onto your counter, which I'm going to do right here and then I'll lift them up and show you. When you look at each of these blades, on the back of the neck, you can see a small number and that's indicative of what size blade you're using. You'll notice that all of the blades have this neck with a number and this rounded part that has writing on it. It says linoleum speedball cutter. That's not the blade part. The other end is the blade, the sharp part is the blade part. So be careful. You can see that each has a little bit of a different shape and also a different width. Depending on the different areas you're carving on your block, whether it's fine line are really big spaces, that will determine what type of blade that you're using. Going through them, there's this really thin one and I get questions about this all the time. I'll tell you right now that actually with the linoleum we're using today, I don't use this much at all. I use this with harder linoleum. I don't really use it on these blocks, because they're so darn soft that if I use such a thin line, I've found that the ink just seeps in there. So I don't really use that in this case. Then moving on up. Number 1, you have this thin, V-shaped. I love this tool because this is really tiny and still big enough that you can get those lines and get nice details. So I really love using this. Then you have the number 2, which is this bigger V-gouge shape. That can be good going along lines, carving out larger areas, doing some side work around lines where you want a little bit more open space that won't be inked. Then we have number 3. We're just more of a U, but still in that little V-shape. Then the 5, which is a really wide gouge. That's really good if you're carving away huge areas of linoleum, you don't want to be using this tiny thing because you'll be there for weeks. You want to use the wide gouge so you can just get rid of that, strip it away. That's a really useful. You'll notice there's no number 4. There's another set of a linoleum carver that comes with the number 4, and that's a square gouge. Honestly, I've actually never used that blade and would like to at some point, but that's a different set. That won't be in the ones that's on your materials list. Now let's talk about how to get that blade into your tool. Say you've picked one out and you can put the rest of the blades back in the handle or leave them to the side of where you're working. I'm going to start with that number 1 because that is my favorite. That's the one I use the most. You're going to look at this little neck of your main tool and loosen it. Now the temptation is to loosen it all the way and what happens then is that this whole thing comes off, which is actually perfect because this was put back together incorrectly. I'll show you that. If you unscrew it all the way, you'll see that these necks comes off, and these two little inner parts fall out. If you're not careful, it'll fall out and maybe lose them. So just be really mindful of that. You'll notice that they come apart. There's these two little pieces, they come apart. If you examine it, there's a neck, down at the bottom. Do you see that? Yeah, so you want that down. You want that down, resting into this when it's altogether, where that neck is. Because the top has the ball, and you want that ball facing up. You want to put the two pieces together where the neck matches up. Line up the neck, have the ball pointing up. So when you put it back into this neck piece, that ball is in the top. This wider bottom, you slide the ball in there. So the ball is in the top, not in the bottom. Make sense? Then you take this and you screw it all back on. If you have a new tool, you probably won't need to undo the whole thing, so just don't go through the trouble. All you need to do is loosen the neck just about halfway. You can see that it jingles and that those two pieces inside separate a little bit. You want to put your blade, the neck of it with the writing on it, not the blade part, but the neck. You want to put that neck in between those two pieces inside that are starting to separate. You have this concave part of the neck that fits around the ball, and you slide it in. Make sure that the neck is all the way in, you're covering up the writing on the neck completely and then you can tighten it back up, feel, make sure it's stable, it's good to go. It's not going to loosen up on you. Now, a little thing, I absolutely love the number 1 blade. However, it gets stuck in this tool all the time, with students, with my own practice, and there's always the question of, how the heck do you get out? What I have found to work is, if you're in the process and you loosen it all the way and it won't slide out and it's just stuck, there's something going on in there, I like to just jiggle it around quite a bit, loosen up that inside ball component, and then sometimes it'll slide out that way. If it's really stuck, sometimes I'll take the whole neck all the way off, being careful not to lose those two inner pieces, and then I'll jiggle it around that way and that usually eventually loosens it out of there.
7. Carving: Safety Rules!: It's time to get carving, and this is my favorite part of the process. But we also have to go over some safety because it's also the most dangerous part of the process. I'm really not a fan of blood and I don't want to see any of that right here or on you. I want to go over a few techniques and tips to keep you safe in this process. It can sound really simple and obvious when I say it, but we always need the reminder, so stick with me as we go through these rules. To hold the linoleum carving tool. The best way to go about this is to put the butt of the tool into the center of the palm of your hand like so and then you can wrap your fingers around the tool naturally. You can see that my thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger are all supporting almost to the neck. Still on the red portion of the tool not up here. Supporting right there and these two fingers are just wrapped loosely around the end. Then that way you can start to carve like so. A few things are to always carve away from yourself, never carved towards you. Always carve away because if this slips on your linoleum at all, you want it to slip away from every part of yourself, from your hand, from your stomach, from your waist if you're standing up, so carve away, carve away, carve away, carve away. One way to make sure that you're always carving away from yourself is to put one hand, your non-dominant hand on one edge of your linoleum, so that you're always carving away from that hand and your hand is holding the block steady. Now if you want to get over to a different part of your block, just turn it around. Place your hand on that other part of the block that you've already potentially carved, putting pressure there, so that it doesn't move, it doesn't wiggle so that you have stability as you carve away. Then you also want to carve at a 45 degree angle. You don't want to becoming in 90 degrees. You don't want to be too close to the surface here. You want to becoming at a 45 degree angle and you can feel it stick in the block at that point. 45 degrees and you'll know when you hit the sweet spot of carving because you'll be able to make fluid lines without any kind of hiccup. If I'm going at a 45 degree angle, starting to carve away a lot of this background, I'm going to come in at that 45 degree. It's real smooth and carve away.
8. Carving: Ins & Outs: Then the question of which blade to use first, because there's five blades. It depends on your design. If you have a lot of areas that you're going to carve away, I would start with the bigger blade, the wider gauge so that you can really start to strip away a lot of that linoleum. For example, this is real faded from what transferred, but you can still tell I was going to carve away all of the background. That's a lot of space that I'm going to carve away. I would probably start with blade number 5, that wide gauge so that I can just start to carve all that away without getting too close to my shapes yet. When I'm outlining my shapes, I'll probably go to a number one or 2 to outline those shapes. Then you see here I wanted to carve away the center of this, so I'd probably use a 2 or even the 1 on there. As you get to the smaller spaces, use the smaller blade, as you're working with bigger places you're carving way, use that big blade. If you do have a lot of detail and a lot of different components happening in your design, a good way to approach it can be to start with the smaller blade and work your way up, because you can always carve away more, but you can't add stuff back in unless you really try with superglue, but you don't want to go there. Work from small to large if you have a lot of that detail going on, because that is a useful way to slowly take away parts of the linoleum without taking away too much too fast. If you have circles in your design, a way to approach that is to turn your block as you carve. For example, here's a circle on mine. Instead of just trying to come around like that, you don't want to do that. Start here and then just turn your block as you put a little pressure into the blade, and you can see that that starts to carve it. I switched from the blade 5, the really wide blade to carve away a lot of this background to a blade 2, which is more the V-shape but still wider than that number 1. I'm using the V-shape because that can be really useful for doing outlines or internal spaces, or especially when you have lines that you want to carve away more than just a thin space, but like this internal cavity, the number 2 V-shape can be really good for that. That's what I'm using right now. A question that comes up a lot when I teach printmaking is how deep or have to carve? Does it need to be super deep? The answer is no, this is not an excavation. You don't have to dig into the block. In fact, that's not going to be easy for you in the carving process. You really want to stick to that 45-degree angle where you're just carving smooth as butter and have like you're just found this groove and you're rolling with it. You're not digging out the linoleum really. The ink is not going to pour down in there, it's going to set on top of that surface so long as you don't have lines that are just barely scratching it. If they're just beneath the surface enough, they won't catch that ink. A question that comes up sometimes when people are carving away an internal part of a shape or a design is how to get rid of the little ridges that happens. You can see on here, there's all these ridges happening from where I've been carving. In here, you can see that there's all these little ridges in the triangle. In terms of the background, sometimes I can add to your design because that's a quality of printmaking that really lends itself to feeling human-made, made by hand, and that can be really precious with relief printing, really unique to this type of process. If you want it completely clean and none of that to show, then you would just come back over potentially especially in this background with a bigger blade and carve over those ridge lines over those little mountain lines. As for things that are like this where it's an internal place, I would use an even smaller blade and come in and start to dig those out a little bit, start to carve those away. A lot of people ask what to do about these shavings. I like to just brush it off, or you can do this knock it out of here. Or what I usually do is I just keep carving and it'll push itself out of the tool, so you can find the way that works best for you. Now that you've carved your block, congratulations,. Go ahead and take a picture, upload it to the class where we can all see your wonderful progress.
9. Get Inky! Method 1: Now that your block is all nice and carved and ready to be printed, get rid of those little shavings that showed up because they like to get stuck in ink and that can create some problems with printing. Just throw them away. Just clear the desk, throw them away, and we'll go over to inking processes. Now I have my dish towel ready to go. Instead of printing, like if it's folded, I don't want to print on here because it might lead through to the other side. So I unfold my fabric completely before printing. Now I'm going to just show you with one corner the printing and inking method with a stamp pad. In this case, I'm going to use this blue color. I want it to really pop and be vibrant because I'm going to also use that with the other inking method as well. I'm having my stamp pad ready to go and I'm going to show you with a smaller stamp because that can be really useful with this process. I'm going to grab what was a little carved cherry tomato from that dish towel you saw. But let's pretend it's a blueberry right now. I'm going to use this same thing, linoleum, and just as you would any other stamp, press it into the pad nice and evenly inked up and then just stamp it directly on here. Boom. You could just repeat that process over and over and over again. We have one here. Let's do it again. You could use multiple colors if you wanted to alternate between each one. Another one. Now the thing about this process that I've found with this type of ink is that sometimes you're not getting as full of a body of color with ink. You're not getting it to be as thick or as vibrant as the other process. That's okay. It's just a different feel and look. Depending on your ink and how new or how old it is, that's a factor too. Now we have three blueberries ready to go.
10. Get Inky: Method 2: If you're going with the more traditional inking method for relief printmaking, it's super fun it's super inky, it's super energized. I really love it. It is a little more complex than just the stamp pad methods. It's really your call, but it's fun to play with both. For this inking process, you'll need an acrylic sheet or an inking plate, and it's really trusting one that I've had for quite some time. It's all inked up, broken a little bit, but I love it. It still works and it's huge, which I really like. It's really nice and big so I can get ink in a lot of different spaces as opposed to something that's smaller like this, which can be really good for a small stamp. But for this case, it's a little too small for what we are going to be doing. Having your inking plate ready to go. A foam brayer. This is really important because brayers are used across printmaking, but different brayers are used for different things. The phone brayer is used for fabric printing and transfers the ink better to the block and interacts with the fabric ink in a better way. I've found. Make sure you've got the foam. Some spreading tool. I just had this plastic knife falling around. You can also use a little paint palette knife, or you could use a spoon from your kitchen, whatever you'd like. I'm just going to use this today, and then the speed ball fabric ink, non-toxic, water-based. I'm going to use this just primary blue color for the example today. I want something that pops and that's really vibrant with this design. With this design, I'm going to play with repeating it all over. It's still a four by six stamp, but it's just shapes in a certain pattern. I'm going to play with just stamping at multiple times across the discharges to see what happens. To start this process, you want to get a glob of your ink from this blue or whatever color you may be using canister. You skipped that glob onto your trusty inking plate. Just a little bit, a significant amount like good glob like that, and drag it across into what we call a ribbon of ink. You drag from the glob across like icing a cake, and then you'll take your foam roller and just drag the ink down from that ribbon onto your acrylic sheets. So you're just going in one direction instead of back and forth. You're pulling the ink down towards you, over and over again just to get a really consistent level of ink on the brayer and on the acrylic sheet. You'll pull that ink down and you're looking for a really specific sound. It's like a hissing noise. Also just a slight attachment feeling between the ink and the foam roller. Just a little bit. Nothing that's like making this whole acrylic sheets stick to your foam roller. Just a slight stick. Nothing really intense, but it's more about this noise that we're looking for. Once you've pulled some of that down from the ribbon, you don't need to keep pulling it down and that will cause too much ink on your brayer and on your block. If you do get too much ink on here, you can actually just use a separate white sheet of paper and roll some of it off and keep doing that until you get to a better level of ink, but you're just looking for a fair enough layer to get an even coating on your brayer. I'll come across this way now and now I'll come across, but I'm not coming back and forth because you really want to pull it across the entire foam roller. Can you hear that pissing? That's what you're looking for. You can even start to see it. It's just like a little speckled texture in the ink. Now I have my carved block, a blank sheet of paper and my inked roller because I wanted to do a test print on paper before I go to my fabric. I want to see if there's any parts I want to edit away or carve. So I'm just going to one pass at a time, go in different directions on my block. First, I'll start by going from the top towards me. You can already see that all the shapes that are raised have been covered in ink, and everything I carved is not getting any ink. There's some of those carving lines we mentioned in the background that are getting inked, but mostly it's not getting that color. Then I'm going to charge the brayer, which means to get more ink on it and then I'm going to come back across my block in a different direction, maybe horizontally. Then I'll try it again, and come diagonally so that you're really coming from every angle and your rolling once on your block each time that you charged it up with ink. So charge with ink, role on your block. I'm going to charge this up, and now I'm going to come at a diagonal. Charge it up, diagonal, charge it up, horizontal, charge, horizontal. Always, when you're using a brayer, always rest it on the back neck handle and never on the roller. Because if he rested on the roller in your ink, it'll create a line that can transfer to your block and that can interfere with the inking process. Always rest it on the back.
11. Create a Test Print: Now we have this inked block and I'm going to test print it on this paper. To print is to transfer just like you would any other stamp where you're pressing down. When I have a larger block, I'm going to put it upside down on the paper so all that inked design is on the paper and the blank back is facing towards me. Then I like to use both of my fists and put a lot of my pressure down into the block evenly instead of my palms because that can kind of concave some of the areas. I've found that if I use my fists, it gets a good even pressure, I'm on my tiptoes right now. I'm really putting quite a bit of pressure into this block. All over, on the corners, on the edges in the middle, and you can hold one end as you peel part of it back just to see. Now, the thing about this ink is that it's meant for fabric, so when you do this test print, it's not going to look the best on paper because it likes to smear and it doesn't like to have the best interaction with this material, but it'll look different on the fabric. But this just gives you an idea of what you want to carve away. I could come and carve away some of those lines that are in the background from carving, but I'm going to leave them in this case, I like that effect of printmaking, but you can just start to see anything that you want to change. Sometimes when you're printing a really large run of something like this, it can get really gummy with the ink on both your inking plate and your brayer. If that starts to happen where it just feels like peely and dry and it's creating a weird texture that's not really wet, but not completely dried out either on your block and on your fabric then I usually just start again. I go and rinse it off with water, make sure everything's completely dry, and then apply more ink to the inking sheet because that way it's starting fresh, it's starting again and you can get a new layer of ink that's not getting that strange texture.
12. Print Your Fabric!: Now I'm ready to print my fabric. Again, I'm going to unfold the whole thing so no ink seeps through and I'm going to start with one corner. I'm going to rethink my block since we just did that test print. I'm going to charge up my brayer. Ink it in one direction. Charge it up. Ink it another direction. Charge it up again. Ink, cross, so that is a nice even coating. Then I'm going to take this and start by stamping one-corner. Lifting a little bit. Now I have this design in one corner. I'm going to repeat this process all across the dish towel. Now there's this repeat pattern on the fabric, can fold up nicely. I'm going to let it dry and then we'll talk about how to heat set your final product.
13. Heat Set Your Print: All right, congratulations. Hopefully, you now have a print that you're really happy with, really stoked about, excited to show off. Before you dive into using it, you want to go through the process of heat setting it. Heat setting is going to make sure that the ink doesn't wash away when you wash it or when you use it, and it'll really keep that ink more permanent on your product. There are two different methods that you can use to heat set your ink. This ink requires heat. Whether you're using the traditional method with a Speedball fabric ink or the stamp pad, both require heat to be set into the fabric. One way you can do this is with the traditional iron. I have this nice miniature iron that I like to use when I'm doing a really small batch of prints. With this is just a single, so this would be perfect to heat set. I just turned it to high heat, all the way up to max. Sometimes, I'll put like an old t-shirt or thin old fabric in between the iron and the print that I've created. Other times, I'll just iron on directly onto the design. You want to make sure that your design is completely dry before you start ironing, otherwise, you might smear the ink. This is dry. On high heat, I just move around my design with the iron for about 3-5 minutes, making sure that it's totally set. I'll often go in a circular motion so that it's really getting an even ample application of heat. The other option is using your dryers. When I have a huge product order or many products that I've created all in one batch, then I will throw all of those into the dryer for about 20 minutes and then they're good to go. I always do a test just to make sure the ink is really set. I'll get a little dab of water on my finger and just put it over part of the ink. It's always fine. I've never had it smear, if you're worried about it. It's just a little section like in the corner of the design just to make sure that it really is set and it's not bleeding out into other areas of the fabric. I would love to see a photo of that final product. Again, just upload that photo into the class project section. I'll get feedback, encouragement, and I can't wait to see what you make next.
14. Common Questions & Answers: As you start to show off your new fabric prints and you start to sell them and you start to use them in your home, you'll probably get two questions that come up a lot. One of those questions is will the ink wash away when I wash the fabric? The answer is no. Because now we know that heat setting it and makes that ink set into your fabric and stay more permanent. The other question is, will it fade? That answer is yes, most likely. It's never going to fully disappear. But after much use and much wash, and much drying, the ink will start to fade a bit. That's part of the material. That's part of how it works, but it takes a long time and it's not going to be disappearing overnight. So that covers those two questions that come up quite a bit.
15. Conclusion: A huge congratulations beginner print makers, not so beginner anymore. You've just created your first fabric print and I cannot wait to see what you've come up with. We've covered a whole lot together in this course. We've covered how to create a design that has often impact, how to translate that design into a custom carved stamp, two different inking methods. How to use these tools as you move forward. These are tools that you can keep using to create more and more fabric prints. I want to see what you're making, so stay in touch. Whether you end up making tote bags or coasters or placemats, I really want to see. Thanks again for joining me for a beginners guide to fabric printing, and I'll see you next time.
Liz Brindley, Illustrator & Creative Biz Coach
