Sunday, July 15, 2012

My First Attempt At Batik

I got out the soy wax, the batik tools and the fabric samples. I had four pieces of fabric of each color: parakeet, wasabi, palomino gold. I then took one of each color and put them in dye pots. Marine blue, peach, bright green, and truffle brown. 


I melted the soy wax in a double boiler and carried both pots out to my table on the patio. The hot water in the bottom pot kept the wax liquid. This was my first attempt at using tjantings. Tip the tool forward to have the wax come out the nozzle, tip the tool backward to keep the wax from flowing out. I played with dots, filled in areas, lines, and did a little drawing. On some of the fabrics, I used a paint brush to make more bold marks. 





The original colors above, marine blue on the next three photos. 



 Truffle brown. 


Peach. 




Bright green. 





I'd like to make enough batik fabric to make a blouse. I'm thinking of parakeet and marine blue. I thought the peach and parakeet would work well, but I got brown and blue when I tried that. I like the strong contrasts better than the subtle contrasts. 

2 comments:

Sharon Merriam said...

Am really liking especially the Truffle Brown 'series'. Have one of those wax tools that I used decades ago now to make Ukrainian Easter Eggs with my girls. Never heard the name of the tool before. Thank you for that.
Good luck with all your many projects.
Sharon M

Laura McGrath said...

You can carve designs into veggies like potatoes or turnips and use them for stamping when you batik. To keep from burning your hands when dipping them in the wax, use one of those corn on the cob pick things, not sure what they're called, though.