The oldest and simplest method of printing designs on fabric is block printing by hand.
It was practiced by Chinese and Indians 2000 years ago.
Block printing is still practiced today as a handicraft because of its artistic and decorative value. And because of purity and richness of colour produced by it.
Each block prints only one colour. So if a design of several colours is desired, blocks must be made for each colour.
The blocks which are used for printing are made of wood or metal.
The design to be printed is carved or raised on thick block of wood.
So in preparing a block- the design area remains raised while the background is carved away.
The procedure for block printing is as follows:
The fabric is first laid flat on the table that has been covered by protective padding material.
The dye stuff is applied in the paste form to the design on the face of the block or a roller is coated with paste and then rolled over the block, depositing a layer of colour on the raised areas.
The block is pressed down firmly by hand on selected portions of the surface of the fabric, forcing colour in to the surface.
To obtain variation of colour in the same design as many additional blocks must be carved as there will be additional colour.
The more colour used, the more valuable and expensive the blocked print will be because of the enhanced beauty as well as the labour involved in the hand printing.
Since the block has to be lifted and stamped on the cloth repeatedly, its size as well as weight should not be excessive so that it can be manipulated easily.
Each fresh portion of the cloth has to be printed by a separate application of the block and the successive impressions have to be adjusted accurately to each other.
Tools used for block Printing:
The blocks used in this method are made of several layers of common timber which are cemented together and the portions to be printed are carved on the thick block of wood.
Metallic blocks such as T-japs are used for special work as in batik printing.
Designs with fine lines which are too fine to be cut on a wooden block, are made by inserting short pieces of copper strips and pins.
For obtaining a overall design of coloured dots, a block-like instrument containing 10-40 needles is used.
Besides blocks, long tables and a number of sieves along with a trolley are required to carry out printing.
The table is generally made of wood and is covered with a resilient pad of a wooden felt cloth of several layers and gunny cloth on which a black grey is fixed.
Suitability: Today, fabric is block printed only in comparatively short lengths of material. Block printing is found chiefly in decorative pieces for the home or inexpensive linens for upholstery purpose.
Merits:
This method is simple to operate and does not require elaborate and expensive equipment.
Designs in any no of colours can be reproduced with ease and certainty by this method.
Block printed fabrics possess richness, fullness and purity of colour.
No limiting factor in respect of size of repeat.
The prints produced by this method are of great decorative value in general.
Demerits:
This method is slow and involves large amount of labour work.
Printed fabric cannot be produced in expensively in large enough quantities by this hand block printing method.
Due to the separate impression of the block, it becomes somewhat difficult to join up each impression or repeat perfectly.
Very long or wide repeats cannot be printed by using large-sized blocks of great weight.
Identification:
Hand block prints can be recognized by slight irregularities in the detail and in the repetitions of the design and by comparing areas for slight variation in colour.
These irregularities are now limitation by machine printing, however they give machine prints the characteristic appearance of expensive hand blocked prints.
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