African American Fabrics: Fabric Printing Using Styrofoam Trays

If you've ever taken a class with me, you know I am the "waste not-want not"  queen, the green-friendly studio "police", and the "make it work" preacher . It is my philosophy, there isn't a reason in the world to not consider your environmental impact even when you're creating. I have great joy in the "craft"  of reducing, reusing and recycling (or, up-cycling). 

Although, I rarely take anything prepackage or carried out in styrofoam, unfortunately it is hard to completely avoid it. So, I have found myself with a wire basket full of those styrofoam trays and container waiting for the wisdom to do something with them.  Over the years, I have seen this relief print process and have tried it with great success. By posting this, please note, I am not encouraging the hoarding of these trays, just an opportunity for when you happen to find yourself with one, you can now make something creative and beautiful using them. 

Printing With Recycled Styrofoam Trays:

This project is one of the many "imperfection" exercises I like to do with my students. As I find, many of us are obsessed with creating "perfect" art and can't always appreciate the  charm and beauty of organic results and non-machine creations. The imperfectness of these prints is what gives them their charm! The basic idea is to use pieces of styrofoam as printing blocks. The image is drawn onto the styrofoam, the styrofoam is painted, pressed down on to a sheet of paper or fabric, and you've made a print.

• Styrofoam trays

• Acrylic Paint, Fabric Paint or any paint that is stiff — if you can shake the bottle it's too runny!

• Paper: nice cardstock for you to make beautiful cards, something simpler for the kids, can be white or colored

• Or, Fabric: Try using different types of fabric to test your results (Even simple printed fabric and yield beautiful results)

• Scissors and ball-point pens

Draw on pieces of styrofoam using a ball-point pen

You'll Need:

Apply paint to your pieces and print!  You will need to apply a new coat of paint for each print.

There are so many ways to use this technique: cards, gift tags, wrapping paper, stationary, envelopes etc. You can even write a message and print it, just remember to write backwards!