Who'dve ever thought that bleach could be fun? If you slop it on your favorite pair of jeans by accident while doing laundry, it's a tragedy, but if you mix it with water and squirt it on fabric on purpose, it can be loads of fun.
I had a nice black batik that I sacrificed for one piece. It already had a reddish-orange color in the print so I figured it might discharge to something beautiful. And it did. I placed pre-cut paper-backed musically-based motifs onto the fabric and squirted it with a 1:1 solution of bleach and water. The bottle I used didn't have the ability to create a fine spritz, so the fabric was very wet. The result was something akin to cave drawings. I really like it. I have some wonderful stamps of masks and petroglyphs that I may use with this material.
The next piece I chose to discharge is the Christmas-themed background I made earlier in the month. Rather than cutting out and appliqueing circles, I decided it would be fun to cut out various sized circles from plastic template material, adhere them to the fabric with non-permanent spray adhesive, then squirt with the bleach solution. As you can see from the results, the discharge was far more subtle than in the previous piece. The dark reds and greens can be seen well, but the beige areas don't show the circles very well. I guess this piece is going to have to be subject to more experimentation...
Today, I studied discharge - a method of removing dye from fabric. I used three methods for masking areas that I did not want bleached: plastic templates, paper-backed templates and my tree silk screen. I was happy to see that the paper templates stood up fairly well with less degradation than I had feared. The plastic templates worked well. I used a bleach and water solution for two projects, discharge paste and a Chlorox bleach pen.
Bleach solution in a squirt bottle
A well ventilated area is necessary, so the garage was the perfect space. I spread a layer of plastic, covered it with a layer of old towels to protect the flooring and mop up any excess bleach and water.
I had a nice black batik that I sacrificed for one piece. It already had a reddish-orange color in the print so I figured it might discharge to something beautiful. And it did. I placed pre-cut paper-backed musically-based motifs onto the fabric and squirted it with a 1:1 solution of bleach and water. The bottle I used didn't have the ability to create a fine spritz, so the fabric was very wet. The result was something akin to cave drawings. I really like it. I have some wonderful stamps of masks and petroglyphs that I may use with this material.
The next piece I chose to discharge is the Christmas-themed background I made earlier in the month. Rather than cutting out and appliqueing circles, I decided it would be fun to cut out various sized circles from plastic template material, adhere them to the fabric with non-permanent spray adhesive, then squirt with the bleach solution. As you can see from the results, the discharge was far more subtle than in the previous piece. The dark reds and greens can be seen well, but the beige areas don't show the circles very well. I guess this piece is going to have to be subject to more experimentation...
Discharge only took a minute or so, then the fabrics were rinsed in a bleach-stop solution for a few minutes and laundered.
Chlorox bleach pen
This is a great method if you want to scribble on fabric. Like the other directly applied method of bleach, this only takes a minute or so to work and the fabric must be rinsed in a bleach stop solution and laundered afterward. I forgot to shake up the pen before first applying the bleach, so I ended up with a few blobs on my project.
With the bleach pen applied After rinsing
Discharge paste
Discharge paste was applied using a brush over a screen. After you brush on the discharge paste, you allow it to dry, then you use steam from your steam iron to activate the paste. As you can see, the paste really bleaches out the area where it was applied entirely.
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