Lino and intaglio on fabric

To create my print work on fabric I first found imagery to base my prints on. My themes for the project 'truth to materials' are natural and texture. I decided to chose imagery of poppy seed pods. For my intaglio piece I found an image of a series of poppy seeds with different colours and tone on each of them and for my Lino cut I used a singular image of a poppy seed pod showing the texture of the pod itself.
For my intaglio piece I placed the image underneath the sheet if Perspex and used an etching tool to draw into the Perspex. Wherever I carved into the Perspex it would create a line when it was inked up. I wanted to explore how the marks would leave texture on the final print. The deeper I carved into the Perspex the darker the line it would create and the more compact the marks the darker the shading would become. I used the intaglio tool to draw the outline of the pods and used cross hatching to shade and contour the pods.
When printing my intaglio prints I used a series of different fabrics including plain calico, hand dyed calico and hand dyed cotton. To dye my fabric I used Indian inks in autumnal and natural colours including sienna, yellow, yellow ochre and deep red. I inked my plate using Caligo etching inks and scrim. After dying my fabric I allowed them to dry slightly and placed my inked up plate over the top of the dyed fabric and put it through the printing press.
For my non dye piece of fabric I first wet the fabric using a spray bottle. Once the fabric as wet enough I removed any excess water and also placed this through the printing press. I then left my prints to dry.
For my lino cut piece I first drew a basic line drawing of my chosen image onto my piece of Linoleum and used a Lino cutting tool to remove all the areas I wanted to be White, whatever bits I wanted to print black I would leave uncarved.
After I had finished carveing my Lino cut I then inked up the piece with relief ink using a roller. I placed an piece of calico over the top of my Lino cut and rolled over the top of the fabric to remove the ink from the plate placing it into the fabric.
I also used the same technique to print onto a piece of polyester.
When creating my prints I realised that the images I had chose were printed backwards, this did not effect the quality of the prints but would need to be reversed if it was important for the image to be the correct way round. To do this I could trace the image and reverse it before etching or carving my plates.

Equipment list-
Linoleum
Etching ink
Relief ink
Lino cutting tool
Etching tool
Fabric - polyester, calico, cotton
Indian inks
Perspex etching plate
Scrim snd tissue paper
Printing press
Spray bottle and water
Roller

HEALTH AND SAFETY
- When using the printing press care must be taken to ensure no harm comes to the user. Long hair must be tied back to avoid contact with the press and hands must be kept away from the roller at all times.
- Hands must be kept away from both the etching tool and Lino cutter as there may be a risk of damage to the users hands.
- The inks I used when printing are non toxic, but care must be taken when choosing inks to use as some may not be safe to use.
- Water must be kept away from electrical items at all times care must be taken when using the spray bottle to keep the water away from electrical devices.