After the final silkscreen prints are dry, hang them up and conduct a class critique. One technique to try is the “Sandwich Critique,” which consists of bread (compliment), meat (constructive criticism), and more bread (another compliment). This technique ensures a positive start and end to the critique while allowing suggestions for improvement. Here are a few questions that could help guide the critique:
How to Use Carbon Paper to Transfer Embroidery Patterns
The short beginners’ tutorial video below will show you how to use white or yellow carbon paper to transfer a pattern from paper on to a dark coloured fabric. You can also use the same method for lighter coloured fabric, but you need to use blue/red carbon paper so that your pattern shows up clearly on the fabric. The colour of the carbon paper is the colour your pattern will be on the fabric.
Instructions (given in video):
- Find a hard, flat surface – then take your fabric, a ballpoint pen, your stencil, and a sheet of carbon paper. Lay the fabric down, and make sure it’s flat.
- Carbon paper has two different sides – one side feels more like paper; and the other has a waxy or chalky coating (on coloured carbon paper, the colourful side is the waxy side). Place the carbon paper on your fabric, waxy side down.
- Take your design/stencil, and place it over the carbon paper – make sure the design fits within the size of the carbon paper.
- With your pen, firmly draw over your stencil. Be careful not to move the fabric or paper while you’re tracing – or the design will be jumbled and imprint in different places!
- Check that you’ve traced over each piece of the stencil – then lift off the paper. Transfer done!
- Take your inner hoop, and lay your fabric over the top. Re-position the outer hoop; screw it tight; make sure the fabric is taut; and trim the corners (if you want!). You’re ready to get stitching!
4 Responses
@Petra – I totally understand! I’m planning to release iron on transfers as an option in the new year – some people (me included!) enjoy the stencilling, so I’ll still offer that too.
I’m sure you’ll have seen and maybe tried other embroidery kits that do come supplied with pre-printed fabric – I’m avoiding this, because it generally means needing to use a synthetic fabric or blended fabric instead of a pure cotton fabric. So iron on transfers will let me continue to use good quality cotton in my kits, and mean there’s less faff for you!
@Irene – I tend to use Klona cotton or some cottons labelled as ‘craft cotton’. It needs to not be stretchy and also be a good medium weight so it doesn’t buckle under the stitches – generally around 160gsm is good!
Objectives
- Students will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using a mechanized process like silkscreening to produce works of art.
- Students will demonstrate the proper steps of the photographic silkscreen printing process.
- Students will apply Warhol’s process of tracing and underpainting as a base layer for their final silkscreen print.
Image cut from a magazine take by photographer Patricia Caulfield and the source image for Warhol’s Flowers series.
An example of Warhol’s underpainted Flowers before the final silkscreen layer is added.
![This artwork is a silkscreen print on canvas. It depicts an image of four flowers (one pink [aurora pink], and three red [rocket red]) with black screen print overlay. The pink flower is located at upper left, and three red flowers are positioned at upper right, lower right and left. The black silkscreened overlay creates the impression of stems and leaves in the background.](/images/142/steps-for-utilizing-866804.jpg)
An example of the finished underpainting with the black silkscreen layer added.
About the Art
Andy Warhol turned to his most notable style—photographic silkscreen printing—in 1962. This commercial process allowed him to easily reproduce the images that he appropriated from popular culture. Warhol’s Flowers series is a portfolio of ten screenprints and hundreds of paintings based off of photographs taken by Patricia Caulfield, which were featured in the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography magazine. After selecting the image, Warhol sent it to a commercial silkscreen maker with a note as to the desired dimensions of the screen and the number of colors to be printed. After the image was exposed and the screen was prepared for printing, it was returned to The Factory, Warhol’s New York City studio. The photographic silkscreen printing process created a precise and defined image and allowed Warhol and his assistants to mass-produce a large number of prints with relative ease. While the flowers originate from realistic photographs, Warhol altered his versions of the flowers, by flattening, cropping, and increasing the contrast of the image, then painting them using vivid colors. Caulfield saw the initial prints and took legal action against Warhol. Warhol offered her a couple of prints in hopes of settling the dispute, but she declined the offer. They settled and in 1964 Warhol went on to exhibit his Flowers at the prominent Leo Castelli Gallery. While Warhol didn’t invent the photographic silkscreen process, he developed his own technique by combining hand-painted backgrounds with photographic silkscreen printed images to create unique works of art.
The reason I’m painting this way is that I want to be a machine.
Andy Warhol, Art News, 1962
Points of View
I tried doing them by hand, but I find it easier to use a screen. This way, I don’t have to work on my objects at all. One of my assistants or anyone else, for that matter, can reproduce the design as well as I could.
Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol, 1969.
