Bleach printing with stencils

 

Timur wearing one of his creations in Vegueta

I had seen various videos with bleach applied to dark fabrics, leaving rust-colored patterns on them. We spoke with Timur about it and he set off cutting stencils from a sheet of thick transparent plastic. By now he has made three of them. The result of the application of the last one is pictured above, worn by Timur himself.

The whole thing must be done outdoors or somewhere very well ventilated. Doing everything on the ground is preferable. 

The materials are simple - a stencil, household bleach diluted 1:1 with water, a spray bottle to put it in,  plenty of water to stop the reaction, and hydrogen peroxide to neutralize the bleach. To get more controllable results, you should also keep some paper towels ready, plus have some plastic bags or pieces of plastic to protect everything around the working area, cover bits that are not supposed to be bleached and to separate the layers of fabric, to prevent the bleach from seeping through. On our second attempt it did just that, leaving a pale secondary image.

Watching the color develop

For a spray bottle, called, rather endearingly, "fuchi fuchi" or even "fufi-fufi" in Spanish, you can use any that produces a fine spray rather than drops or a jet. We used normal household bleach sold in Spain. If you want to have a go, check the normal concentrations of bleaches in your country against the ones in Spain, I know they could be different.

Done

So, the steps

1. Have the following items assembled outdoors or in an extremely well ventilated place, like in a fume hood in a lab, not far from a tap with running water.

• Spray bottle with diluted bleach
• Stencil
• Bits of plastic, paper or cardboard to cover everything and separate layers
• Paper towels 
• T-shirt or whatever you are printing on
• Basin with water to drop the garment in to stop the bleaching 
• For the last step, have hydrogen peroxide nearby
• Put on gloves. Wear glasses if you have any, just in case. If you have a mask, put that on. 

 2. Positioning.

Optional - Put a protective layer of plastic between the layers of T-shirt. 

Check the wind direction, you don´t want your clothes or surroundings to be bleached. Position everything accordingly. 

Put the stencil in place. Put plastic or paper over the bits that are exposed, to prevent unwanted bleaching.

3. Check your spray bottle. Spray the bleach over the stencil. If drops form on the plastic, mop it up with a paper towel.

4. Watch the color develop. It happens pretty quickly, took less than a minute.

5. Drop the garment into your water basin, bleached spot first, to stop the process. Take the whole thing to a tap, and rinse thoroughly in running water. 

6. Meanwhile, make a weak solution of hydrogen peroxide, 1:10. You don´t need much. just enough to soak the print. The hydrogen peroxide sold here is 3%, so it ends up being 0.3%. Once again, check the concentrations sold in your country, in case there is a difference. We made the solution in a small flat basin, about 2 liters, but I reckon a smaller amout will do.

 Warning and precautions; 

Do not inhale the bleach, avoid skin contact with it, etc, etc, read the label, basically. When neutralizing the bleach, don't be tempted to change the hydrogen peroxide for vinegar. Acid will neutralize the base, but toxic chlorine gas will be released in the process, you don't want that. 

Pictures of Timur in Vegueta on shutterstock - here