block-printing-msg - 11/6/98 Block printing for cloth. NOTE: See also the files: woodcuts-msg, wood-msg, early-books-msg, paper-msg, inks-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: tbarnes at silver.ucs.indiana.edu (thomas wrentmore barnes) Subject: Re: Block Printing Organization: Indiana University Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 17:07:48 GMT I was thumbing through Cellini's book on Art Techniques this morning when I saw a chapter on block printing cloth! Yippee! A period source. He says that you can block print on linen or silk using wood blocks "about the size of a brick" (Anybody know how big the standard 15th c. Italian brick was?) He recommends the technique for making patterned fabric for children and for certain altar cloths. Here's the technique as I understand it. 1) Make your block by carving or engraving the pattern into the face. Then put a handle on the back. 2) Then using lampblack mixed with varnish ink the block by smearing ink on a glove you wear on your left hand and then hand across the block. 3) Carefully block your fabric, using a stretcher frame (2 x 4') underneath. 5) Then add detail the fabric by painting the design details with yellow, red or green paint (These appearantly didn't have any body to them, so they worked on fabric.) 6) He gives further information for how to block print on different colors and textures of cloth, as well as instructions on how to paint cloth. BTW, just in time for Pennsic XXIV, boiled linseed oil or varnish are mentioned as waterproofing substances. Linseed oil for walls to be frescoed, varnish for gessoed and gilted decorations on painted cloth. Try it on your tent next year! Gotta run, Lothar \|/ 0 From: sumner at bu.edu (Charles Sumner) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Block Printing Date: 3 Sep 1993 02:49:08 GMT Organization: Emerald City Productions thomas wrentmore barnes (tbarnes at silver.ucs.indiana.edu) wrote: :> I was thumbing through Cellini's book on Art Techniques this :>morning when I saw a chapter on block printing cloth! Yippee! A period :>source. He says that you can block print on linen or silk using wood :>blocks "about the size of a brick" (Anybody know how big the standard :>15th c. Italian brick was?) He recommends the technique for making :>patterned fabric for children and for certain altar cloths. Well, lo and behold my library actually has standard for 15th c. Italian bricks!!! According to Leon Battista Alberti's On the Art of Building in Ten Books c.1450: "The ancients used three types of brick; the first 1 1/2 feet long by 1 foot wide, the second measuring 5 palms in each dimension, and the third no more than 4 palms. Bricks measuring 2 feet by 2 feet are found in some buildings, especially in arches and bonding brick work....I have seen bricks no more than 6 inches long, 1 inch high, and 3 inches wide, although these were generally laid down in paving in a herringbone fashion." - Book 2, Materials Of course, he also says that he prefers triangular bricks, but that's another story. I leave measurement conversion up to you. - Gideon Alexandru From: WALTER at tandem.PHysics.upenn.EDU Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: block printing, waterproofing Date: 3 Sep 1993 13:12:54 -0400 Good luck with Cennini's techniques! I have a friend who tried a couple of years ago with no success, but I don't think she had the fabric stretched, and I don't think she used his ink formula. I think she used fabric paint, which is probably too thick (although you could try adding a lot of thinner). I myself have had good luck producing the appearance of block printing with fabric paint (I use Deka) and stencils. I was making things I had to be sure I could wash. A caution about using linseed oil or varnish to waterproof your pavilion -- this will destroy any flame retardant capacity your pavilion may once have had. Varnish will also greatly reduce the "breathability" of your fabric -- don't know about the linseed oil. As far as the size of a brick goes, the gentle who posted the information from 1450 about bricks seems to have been confused. Cennini was writing in the late 15th century himself -- brick of the "ancients" probably means bricks from the Roman empire. I suspect the size of 15th century bricks was pretty close to that of our own, maybe a little smaller. (This is true of 16th and 17th c. Northern European bricks, anyway.) I think the point is that anything larger won't work well -- it will be much more difficult to exert even pressure on it, necessary to produce consistent ink coverage. An aside about the dyes for British redcoats (yes, I know, this doesn't belong on this forum) -- I suggest you obtain a copy of J. Liles, "The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing", University of Tennessee Press. Mr. Liles has done very thorough and extensive research into 18th and 19th century dyes, and will tell you all you want to know. I don't remember the specifics myself, but the process was long (Based on cochineal, I think) and involved 20 or so seperate steps. Happy experimentation! Karen Walter/Richenda Cameron Shire of Hartshorn-dale, East walter at tandem.physics.upenn.edu From: Elwyn.Halfmoon at f555.n387.z1.fidonet.org (Elwyn Halfmoon) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Block Printing Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1993 14:19:00 -0500 > From: tbarnes at silver.ucs.indiana.edu (thomas wrentmore barnes) > 2) Then using lampblack mixed with varnish ink the block by > smearing ink on a glove you wear on your left hand and then > hand across the block. > BTW, just in time for Pennsic XXIV, boiled linseed oil or > varnish are mentioned as waterproofing substances. And also, if I am not mistaken, lampblack and linseed oil was used as an early printer's ink. (as in Gutenburg - 1450 is well in period :) Elwyn From: palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu (sharon ann palmer) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Block Printing Date: 5 Sep 1993 20:14:35 -0400 Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science tbarnes at silver.ucs.indiana.edu (thomas wrentmore barnes) writes: > Thanks, this confirms my suspicions! The blocks would have to be >pretty good sized to print the fabric quickly and with a minimum of join >lines where blocks had to be lined up. I have not researched early European prints, but modern Indian print motifs that I have seen are around 5"-7", larger ones would be harder to print evenly. And they make very little attempt to line up the repeats, except when printing the border. Is the notion of perfect registration caused by mechanical printing? Ranvaig Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: tbarnes at silver.ucs.indiana.edu (thomas wrentmore barnes) Subject: Re: Block Printing Organization: Indiana University Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 15:26:49 GMT palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu (sharon ann palmer) writes: >I have not researched early European prints, but modern Indian print motifs >that I have seen are around 5"-7", larger ones would be harder to print >evenly. And they make very little attempt to line up the repeats, except >when printing the border. Is the notion of perfect registration caused >by mechanical printing? In Milia Davenport's History of Costume, there are several pictures of 13th c. printed silks, they seem to have a pattern that is regular in both along the warp and the weft. Since they were printed up as cheap knockoffs of expensive Italian silk brocades (which were obviously even along the warp and weft) I presumed that the printers tried to make their products as close to the look of brocade as possible. So far I have seen nothing to disprove my hunch. Maybe if I got to see the real item, as opposed to a reduced sized black and white photo, I COULD see the registration errors that inevitably occurred. I figured that the problem of misprints could be solved by using 2 identical blocks with the pattern on the bottom of the blocks carefully lined up and guide lines on the top of the blocks where the patterns meet the edge of the block (and will join up with a new pattern on the cloth). Then, you ink and place one block. Leave it. Ink and place the next block above it, so you are working paralell to the selvage. Then, remove the first block, reink it, line up the guidelines and edges of the 2 blocks and then place the first block above the second block. That way you might reduce registration errors to a minimum. Also, instead of using a glove, as Cellini recommends, I was thinking about using a printer's ball to ink the blocks - period (but possibly post Cellini) and probably less messy. Lothar \|/ 0 (who is still working on the theory). From: dalton at ea.net (Nancy Dalton) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca,soc.history.medieval Subject: Re: Silk Banners Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 10:59:11 GMT david_key at vnet.ibm.com (Dave Key) wrote: >>Dave, can you please provide the source citation for this >>information? A number of good folk local to the Barony ofthe >>Steppes are seeking to increase their documentation of the use of >>painted fabric "in period". There is another book that discusses painting fabrics: The Crafsman's Handbook "Il Libro dell' Arte" by Cennino dAndrea Cennini and translated by Daniel V. Thompson, Jr. LOC catalog card #: 54-3194 It is an instruction book for artists on several subjects some of which are block printing on fabrics and painting wall hangings. It was originally published in Italian in 1437. I bought it on a whim and found it more useful than I'd dared to hope. Nancy Dalton aka Earnwynn van Zwaluwenburg Date: Sun, 02 Nov 1997 08:49:32 -0600 From: mary boulet To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Printed textiles in period I recently ran across this passage in "The Textile Arts" by Verla Birrell, original copyright 1959. I seek primary sources to substantiate, or refute, her statements. The only bibliographic citation she gives is: Clouzot, Henri, "Painted and Printed Fabrics", Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1927. If anyone on this list has more current information, please post to the list. Many thanks from Myra Nedlesaeng, Calontir. 'China is thought to have been the initiator of block printing. It is said that China employed earth pigments to paint block prints on textiles in 400 BC. However true this may be, the National Museum in the Forbidden City does have some wooden blocks dating from 200 BC much later than the records of the use of clay stamps in Mesopotamia. The earliest known piece of block-printed cloth was one, belonging to the ninth century AD, found in a Coptic tomb in Egypt. Many of the Coptic print designs were ornamented with gold and silver; the process was called tinsel work and was done on brilliantly colored cottons and silks. The knowledge of block printing spread northward from the Mediterranean area into Europe. Fabric that appears to have been block printed was found in the tomb of Bishop Caesarius, who was buried in Arles, France, in 543 AD. Another piece of this type of work was found in the tomb of St. Cuthbert, who was buried in Durham, England, in 1104. A thirteenth century record mentions that block printing was being done in Italy at the time. In Germany, early in the Renaissance, craftsmen began using block prints to imitate Florentine velvets; in other European centers the weaves themselves were being copied. Ever since the period of the crusades, Europe had been somewhat aware of the printed cottons of India and Java. It has even been said that America was discovered because Columbus was searching for the block-printed fineries of the Far East. A considerable quantity of block prints from India appeared in Europe in 1592, when the British captured a Portuguese vessel loaded with India prints. As early as 1619, England was using blocks for printing cloth. About a decade later permission was given to the East Inda Company, a British industry, to import cottons from India.' Edited by Mark S. Harris block-printing-msg Page 3 of 6