Textiles Programme:BA Year2 print specialism.

3 days, 3 technicians 3 processes all using the heat press. The sessions are 3 hours long. 24 students in groups of 8.

• Screen printing- flock and foil printing finished on the heat press.
• Digital sublimation disperse dye in a large format printer printed on the heat press.
• Disperse dyes painted onto cartridge paper and printed using the heat press.

I was inducting students through the third process, painting with disperse dyes.

Disperse dyes have been designed to be used with synthetic substrates, I introduce students to the process using synthetic fabrics (polyester, nylon, lycra and rayon) Disperse dyes can be used to dye, screen print, digitally print and paint with. The process of printing disperse dye onto synthetic substrates with a heat press is called sublimation printing. Solid particles of dye (disperse dyes do not disolve) turn directly into a gas without going through a liquid stage, at high tempeture and pressure. This coloured gas transfers permanantly onto a sythetic substrate resulting in a colour change.

Although I feel its part of my job to give students this information I tend to keep it brief, I am aware the majority of them are not really interested, the general reaction is ‘as long as it works I dont really care why’ which is understandable.

Students are excited by the immediacy of the process, one student managed to produce 12 A3 samples in the 3 hour session. I was concerned that students might not engage with this process because only synthetics can be used. However this did not seem to concern them and led on to a good discussion around the sustainability of natural versus synthetic fabrics. I asked students what they liked and didnt like about the process.

‘I like how instant it is, that you can bang out a load of samples quickly and try different things out, experimental.

‘I dont like how you can’t easily control the colours that come out. It’s hard to get the colour exactly how you want it’ Aliyah BA Year2 print

‘It is a quick process which I like because you can produce alot of work in a short ammount of time’

‘I don’t like how the output colours are incorrect when you print it on the fabric’ Zhi BA Year2 print

When students come to the class they have already watched a Heat Press presentation and successfully completed a quiz on-line, so are aware of the health and safety rules regarding working on a heat press with disperse dyes. They have also had a 30 minute induction on-site into independent use of the heat press, local exhaust ventilation and identifying ‘safe’ materials to put in the press.

I have read extracts from Matt McLain. 2019 Developing perspectives on ‘the demonstration’as a signatre pedagogy in design and technology education.

teacher as an expert, teacher as a facilitator.

I read about the constructivist philosophy of education and took it to mean that a learner gains new knowledge through having experiences and talking and adds this to the knowledge they already had. In the case of my heat transfer class I dont feel I need to demonstrate painting and collaging techniques to students because BA Year 2 print students will already be familar with them, rather I’m adding a new way of working or technical process to an already existing bank of knowledge my students have.

I am aware that my students enjoy demonstrations and passively watching but I believe its important to keep technical demonstrations brief and general as students often try to replicate technics I demonstrate rather than find and develop styles of their own. I always emphasise that work produced in inductions should be relevant to the project briefs the students are currently working on. I end the session by naming designers and artists who work with the techniques and processes we have been trying out. Students can then research the process and designers who use it before booking independent access for a further session.