Sunday 2 March 2014

With all my crazy heart batik workshop.

Yesterday I went to a workshop taught by the wonderful Louise MacIntosh-Watson (aka Miss Mac Designs) at The Beetroot Tree.  Louise made us our wonderful meadow panting but has started to focus more on the art form Batik, a beautiful technique that creates layers of deep and rich colours using dyes and hot wax.  Her collection can be viewed here but here is one of my favourites.


The workshop focused on her series "With all my Crazy Heart" so that we would leave having learned the form of batik but having been given a starting point to work from.  Here are a series of Louise's crazy heart Batiks.


After a brief introduction we were let lose with the tools.  The hot wax was ready to go in a wax warming pot, like the ones used by beauticians.  These had little tools called tjanting's waiting to be used sat in them.  They hold the hot wax in the body and it flows out the small spout which is used to make drawings.  Some were a little faster flowing than others but I found one that worked for me.


First we just had a little experiment on some smaller pieces of paper to get used to using the tjanting.  Until I had got the hang of it I made a bit of a mess but this all part of learning.


Once we were familiar with the tools we were given a heart to draw around in order to start off
our crazy heart batik.  This was very exciting.


The wax we put on at this point would keep the paper white after the dye had been painted on.  I started by creating my outline and then adding some decoration.  At this point I will point on that I made two batiks whilst I was there so the pictures will look different at different points of the process.




After the first application of wax it was time to paint on the first layer of dye. The thoery behind the dyes is to start with a very weak solution and gently create a more vibrant colour as the dyes are layered.  This also ensures that when the dye is removed there is a real variety of colour rather than it all being the same.

 The first one I made (on the right) was more of an experiment with my doodles, the second was more of an experiment with a more refined design. 
The hot wax cannot be applied to wet paper as it will not stick so the hairdryer did have to be used at points but I worked on both at the same time to allow the other time to dry  After the dye had dried, it was time to apply yet another layer of wax.

Then another layer of dye, this time mixing the colours at the seams a bit more to create new and exciting patches of colour.



After the second layer of dye it was time to introduce darker dyes to add more depth and to create new colours.  After approximately five wax and dye applications it was time to go over the whole thing with some black ink.  I was a bit wary of this but having seen Louise's lovely pieces could see it would be worth it.







At this point the wax needed scraping off with a pallet knife to reveal the colours underneath in their true vibrancy.  It was so exciting revealing the beauty underneath.


After a quick iron between newspaper sheets the pieces were finished.



The one of the left is bay far my favourite of the two, I just love the uniformity of the dots against the colours and scribbles in the middle of the heart.




I went straight out today to purchase a frame for it hang proudly above out spare bed.  I am so proud of it and would love to start creating batiks in my own style.  I am not sure I have the room though, such a shame.


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