Blockprinters

We are in the blockprint workshop, it is the first work since the mater Rajwir was tragically killed in a road accident, Mum Nandu-ji and the boys are doing fine. The youngest who was 3 days old when his Dad died is a lovely chubby baby now....

So yesterday was a difficult day- Rajwir was mentioned a few times....and appreeciated for his skill and his quiet smile.

Makes me teary not seeing him there and his beautiful family alone.

Still that is life- we make the best of it.

We aslo missed Rajwir yesterday for his ability to mix the pigments for printing.

An ancient process combined with modern print-paste and pigment colours - love the combination! Lots of colour choice and permancy- yeh!

anyway our problems....Mahendra who Rajwir trained to print would be one of the best if not THE best I have come across for the accuracy of his work....but he never mixed colours....

so I said I was happy to do that [in fact very happy as it gives me greater controll over that aspect]

we started off using the print paste they had in store...then ran out so I ran and got what I had in stock after printing washes on fabric with Gopal-ji the day before [pictures here]....and we mixed up buckets and buckets of colours....started to print and it went well......

 A bit of a challenge for Mahendra as I wanted a shadow of a second colour printed over the first run- not the Indian way....and trying new things are hard for people here. They would hate to get it wrong, every ruppee is accounted for so would hate to waste anything as well....

Unless you have tried block printing you won't understand the skill in simply getting it all lined up straight, let alone constant matching registartions of colours!

The secret to clear registrations is this little tray, there is the reservoir below for the ink and the pad on top....I printed fabrics for my ranges of clothes in Australia for years and could never get the ultimate stamp pad- I had to come to India to find out....and now I can get someone to do the hard slog of printing for me as well!!

Last night we hit a snag....[I have in the mean time visited 5 times- every step of the way they are checking their colours and how they are progressing with me]

Seeing this I am glad I am the first client since they are doing it alone- we will iron out the snags- I am happy to work at it....and they won't loose the workshop's reputation.

So the SNAG, we were onto a new colour combination and every print wanted to bleed!!! and blur...we looked at everything then realised it was mixed with the old binder.....it all has to be chucked and new colours mixed with my fresh binder!!!

Ohh bother some of my fabrics are not going to be up to scratch- this is part of my Pukka Components Blockprint range ear marked for sales already...but we are sorting that out and all will be well.

Strange- I wanted a bit of my fabric to play with, I have ideas to explore...I think this is the universe's way of supplying...if it was all perfect I would package it up and sell it...this wasy I have some that is fine for my use....[need to be more careful with how I phrase it next time I want something!]

OK I need to be in the workshop early today - we are still sorting out our print quality....almost there- yeh.  See ya!