Name: Fabio

Country: Italy
Message: Hello Paula,
I'm a screenprinter and I'd like to start to print with dyes. Actually I print with common screenprinting inks that are pigments and not dyes, so I was wondering whether do you know any book about dyes and screenprinting. I really can't find anything with those two criteria and this is frustrating me.

I've read from the books of Ann Johnston about the use of sodium alginate, but I'd like to read a comprensive guide about screenprinting and dyes.

Hope you can suggest a book or a source, because dyes are the only reason for that I started to screenprint (I don't like pigments, they're invasive!)

If you hadn't mentioned Ann Johnston, I'd certainly be recommending her book, Color By Design. It contains the techniques you need to let experience be your teacher.

Another book that goes into screenprinting with fiber reactive dyes is sold in combination with a DVD: Screen Printing - Layering Textiles with Colour, Texture & Imagery, by Claire Benn & Leslie Morgan, covers a range of screen printing techniques. If you can't find this set locally, you can order it from Dharma Trading Company, in the US.

I always recommend anything written by Jane Dunnewold, and I think you'll want to look at her non-traditional Improvisational Screen Printing, which is available, separately, as both a book and a DVD. The topic is more how to set up the screen with unexpected materials than it is about the dyes and inks used, but there is a appendix about using dyes. If you can't find them locally, you can order them from Dharma Trading Company or from PRO Chemical & Dye, in the US. (See ProChem's links for the DVD and the book.)

A different and still more non-traditional approach is Kerr Grabowski's DVD, Deconstructed Screen Printing. She places the reactive dye on the screen itself, creating a different result with every pass of the print paste. This DVD is also available at both Dharma and ProChem.  Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan also have a book about breakdown printing, Breakdown Printing: New Dimensions for Texture and Color.

A book I don't know anything about is Joanna Kinnersly-Taylor's Dyeing and Screen-Printing on Textiles. The title implies it might cover exactly what you want, but we can't be certain without looking at it. The Amazon description of it reads,

I hope that you find the book that you need.

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