ARIADNE FABRIC
Design Fabric glossary B Bandana, Baroque, Bayadere, Beauvais, Block printing,
Blotch, Bizarre, Borders, Boiserie, Botanical, Bridge to Ground, Definitions
Borders
These can be printed up to be added for decoration to plainer cloths, or can be incorporated in the design and printed on one or both sides of the cloth. This is now a very unusual layout.
Block printing
The design is carved onto a large number of blocks which when put together represent the whole pattern. Different blocks are need ed for different colours. it is the earliest form of textile printing and only exists today at a few specialised printers(Turnbull Thompson in the UK). Each block is placed on the cloth and registered in its precise postion by hand and then the dye is knocked into the cloth with a blow from a hammer. The craftsmanship involved is considerable and requires a training of several years so this form of printing is highly prized.The effect of this hand printing is for a particulary rich imprint of colour often with slight misregistrations or unevenness created by the movement of the block which characterises this kind of printing. The effect can be reproduced in screen printing but obviously without the arbitrary quality of a hand dproduced cloth.
Botanical
Patterns using a style used in botanical illustrations ie highly detailed and realisticly represented forms. of grassed, flowers, shells etc.
Bridge to the ground
A colour which acts as a link to the ground so that motifs are not too starkly registerd against the ground colour and so that there is a subtle swell of colour throughout the pattern.
Brocatelle
A damask which has a plain or satin weave ground in which a design is woven in a satin or twill. The different weaves give a subtle contrasting effect. Amphora Damask.
Brocade
A heavy woven fabic which has a damask self pattern formed by the method of weaving. Amphora Damask
Blotch
The name given to the ground on the artwork for a design. It can be applied as a gouache wash onto stretched paper as a first step in preparing a design. In screen printing it can be a separate screen, or a light colour can be added after printing which gives rise to a tea-stained or antique look. All the colours are affected by this process and the changes must be
borne in mind by the printers when the colours are mixed.
Bandana
White or brightly coloured stripes on a dark or bright ground usually navy or red.
Baroque
The style of the 17th and early 18th which was exuberant and very bobust in its stylisation of natural forms. It is a rich dramatic style. Baroque Floral.
Bayadere
Brightly coloured stripes in a horizontal format characterised by strong effects of colour. A bayadere is an Indian dancing girl, trained from birth.
Beauvais
Another French town which produced tapestry similar to Aubusson.qv. The colour palette tended to be more robust and the imagery more quirky. Beauvais.
Bizarre
Partly due to the predominance in the late C17th and C18th of French designers and French silk weaving there developed a fashion for fantastical abstracted, highly stylised, often asymmetrical forms of plants and seeds. Lace fabrics of the period mixed naturalistic with highly detailed and stylised forms.
Boiserie
Delicately carved wood in shallow relief. Boiserie.