Flour Resist with Dye and Fabric Inks

I've been getting interested in resists and tried out flour paste as a means to enhance printing and dyeing.

It's quite easy but takes a bit of time.

Pin out a piece of cloth onto a sheet of plastic and onto something with give (I used a scrap of carpet underlay) - as the cloth dries it will shrink so the 'give' is important

Mix 1:1 flour and water - it should drip out in a solid fast drip as per the picture

I spread the mix out with the back of a spoon

Some tools to mark make  

I wrote out some words with a kebab stick

Some more mark making with a cookie cutter

Drying out in the airing cupboard - beware, the smell of the flour mix will linger for months after

When the paste is dry it has a kind of sheen on it

Detail of the dried marks

You can see the curvatures of the shrinkage and how it tugs at the pins

Detail of the marks

Scrunch up the cloth

Cloth after scrunching - brush away the 'crumbs'

I used fabric paint with a brush, really pushing it into the cracks

The back of the cloth once painting has started (I should have put a protective piece of plastic on the table)

This is the same but with dyes

The dyed piece ready for drying and batching

The dried fabric painted cloth - I have started crumbling off the flour

Flour mostly removed

Detail of the cloth - I've left little bits of the flour for texture

I tried removing the flour by washing instead with the dyed piece but it gets very 'gluey'

The finished dyed piece has some delicate colouring

The finished painted pieces - front and back

Beware of flushing the flour mix crumbs down your sink or in your washing machine as it could block your drains.

I found the results really interesting and have used one piece already to resolve.

Here are some other things you can do with flour resist:

Leslie Tucker Jenison Flour Paste Resist turorial

Maree Martin on YouTube

Jamie Kalvesrtan Design

Jane La Fazio