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Printing The Color Is Applied:
The earliest known Textile designs were painted by hand and antedate woven patterns by many centuries. Today, various methods of pattern printing are used.
Direct printing. For this type of printing the color is applied directly to the cloth. It can be done by hand with pen or brush, or with wooden blocks, each of which prints one color and a certain section of the design. This system is known as bloc/sprinting. When copper-plate printing was originated, it was considered quite efficient, but was soon superseded by roller printing. At first the rollers carried only the outline of the design, which was later filled in with the necessary colors. Designs are now etched on copper rollers, one roller for each color and for a certain section of the pattern. The last roller prints the background color. Some fabrics are printed on the warp threads only. These are known as warp or shadow prints, and the design has a mottled or faded appearance.Resist and extract printing. An old method of producing patterned fabrics, a variation of which is still in use, is the process known as resist-dyeing. It was employed when a pattern of small light motifs was desired on a large dark background in one color. The effect was produced by coating the portions of the fabric to be left white with wax or clay. The entire fabric was then dyed. Wherever the coating had been applied, the fabric "resisted" penetration of the dye. Upon removal of the wax, a white pattern was left on the dark ground. In modern reproductions of this type of fabric, the procedure is exactly opposite from the former method, and is called extract printing. After the entire fabric has been dyed, a chemical is applied to certain portions, which removes the background color, and forms the desired pattern. In both methods, an effect of great charm is achieved by the slight irregularities and color variations in the finished product.
Salt glaze. A surfacing of thin glass for pottery produced by throwing salt into the oven while firing. Slip. A watery clay of various colors used for surfacing pottery by dipping the piece in a bath. Soft-paste. A term applied by European potters to a mixture of clay and ground glass that was used to make an imitation porcelain before the European discovery of kaolin. Transfer printing. An inexpensive method of printing one-color patterns on pottery. The pattern or picture is first printed on paper from a copper-plate engraving and then transferred to the pottery from the paper.
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