Breakdown Printing with Wax Pastels

This is a technique that was briefly introduced to us during the Poetry of Decay course I was on back in November, but at the time I had been so overwhelmed with all the new techniques we were learning that I didn’t really have time to try it out properly. So, better late than never, I decided to give it a go now. I already had the necessary materials and it had seemed straight forward when it had been explained to us, so I thought it was something new to try.

It is actually very easy to do. You need water soluble wax pastels, a silk screen, textile medium (if working on fabric) or matt medium (if working on paper) and fabric/paper. You colour onto the silk screen, either by drawing, doing rubbings or using stencils. Then you push the textile (or matt) medium through the screen, which pushed the colour through with it. You can do multiple sweeps, but the colours will fade/breakdown each time you do it.

First print on paper

Second print on paper

First print on fabric

Second print on fabric

One of the screens I was using had dried matt medium on it (where it wasn’t washed out properly after previous use), which gave the lines, but you could also use tape or a stencil to create the same affect if you liked it.

The colours of the pastels I had gave a limited (and not particularly nice) colour palette, so it would probably work better if you had more variety. I was only using a selection of 12 colours, but they do come in bigger packs and maybe other brands have better colour selection. It was noticeable that I got better results when using a more limited colour palette, for example browns or blues.

I tried drawing a picture onto the screen, which didn’t turn out particularly well, but then I wasn’t really trying too hard! I did find the pastels quite hard to draw with, especially on the screen, so it is either something that will take practice or else it isn’t possible to create much detail in the drawing. If I did it again, I’d probably print out a picture to put under the screen so I could trace it, which would make transferring the image onto the screen much easier. It probably works best without too much detail though, so maybe detail could be added later with a different type of printing, painting or even stitch.

From my (limited) experience, it worked better on fabric than it did on paper, although I don’t know why. It might have something to do with fabric medium being better at moving the colour through the screen than matt medium, or maybe it was the type of paper I was using? I will say, if doing the printing on fabric, pin it out! I did the first time and the prints came out really well, but the second lot of prints I did, I was too lazy to find the pins again, and the prints definitely weren’t as clean – so don’t be lazy, go find the pins!

As is often the case when I do these technique experiments, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the fabric I have now created. I like it a lot, especially the brown ones, so I want to find a use for them. I like the idea of working over the prints to add more details, definitions or just new marks, either using the same method or, as mentioned above, other types of printing, paint or stitch, or maybe a combination of all three.