green to red

last dye bath and ironing out

cloths: first dye bath, second waxing

cloths: printing the fabric

cloths: fabric design

a community of learners

batik studio with clay projects

In between classes.
The newspaper accumulates. One table has been turned into the ironing station for wax removal. The newspapers, saturated with the wax, accumulate under the table over the course of the day - as long as the irons are being used. At the end of the day, we stack the papers and put them in the trash. But most of the newspapers are recylced.
And I've finally started firing the Grade 6 vessels.

batik- removing the wax

drying the fabric

batik - waxing and dyeing

Batik tables are covered in newspaper first then paper off the roll from the paper cart. Batiks are pegged to drying lines strung underneath.There are two tables set up in the studio with two electric frying pans each. The wax is an even split of bees wax and parrafin melted to about 250 degrees fahrenheit.

This is the second waxing. Areas of color are preserved in wax before the next dye bath. The fabric darkens when the wax penetrates it properly. We use only primary colours, but a wide variety of colour combinations are possible. Analogous colour schemes are encouraged.


Complementary colours need to be painted on. THis design calls for green grass as well.

batik

wax resist and dye

Designs were broken down to basic shapes, manufactured into cardboard blocks, and then printed with melted wax onto prewashed 100% cotton broadcloth. Each person brough their own shapes to the table to use. Inevitably they were shared.

The remaining egg dyes, (composed of vinegar and food coloring), were set up with paint brushes and we painted in our designs. Color theory played an important role in keeping the colors true in the jars.

Primary colors were painted directly on the fabric or mixed to secondaries by moving from lightest to darkest, in order to prevent contamination. The wax resist contained the dye and controlled the spread. Areas of color mixing become more deliberate: I want this to be green, so yellow goes down first, then blue...

wax resist

We recalled shapes and symbols from the various countries through which students had travelled in studies curriculum. Most recently, we'd been exploring the Ukraine, ( as well as my own stories of growing up Polish in Calgary), through the process of creating pysanky. The remembered patterns and symbols were broken down to fundamental shapes and then created in folded cardboard blocks.

The blocks were heated in bees wax and then stamped on the cloth. In this case, groups of 5 are decorating the tails of a kite. Each participant created cardboard shapes in response to their own cultural study. As a group, students decided on a repeating pattern of symbols along the length of their kite tail. There are 5 tails in total.

wax resist