Search This Blog

Thursday 6 October 2016

Wax Inspirations

I just enrolled in a new art course. This time it is not an online course but one that the Toronto District School Board puts out. It is a course in Batik, that is, dying fabric using a wax resist. I love Batik fabric and have done many of my art quilts as well as more traditional quilts using this kind of fabric which was produced commercially. So it made sense to me to enroll in this course and learn how to do it myself.

I truly enjoyed the first class I attended although, it is a lot harder than I thought. I will need lots of practice. The course goes until just before Christmas so I will have lots of opportunity for that. It definitely helps that I have some knowledge of how to dye fabric.

I brought 100% cotton fabric that had been washed but not dyed as well as some that I dyed at home.
The wax we used was bees' wax into which we put wooden and wire implements to use to stamp the wax onto the fabric. My stampings were not perfect and I dripped a lot of wax here, there and everywhere. But it was fun and I kind of like the results.




Here I waxed the un-dyed fabric and so I will dye over the wax with one or many layers of different colours.






Some of the implements used are old metal cookie cutters, metal lids, wooden seed pods, wire, wooden block stamps.



These are done on fabric I dyed at home first with one coat of yellow dye and then put wax on top.



Below I waxed the yellow dyed fabric and then over dyed it with red and some spots of blue. All of these pieces still have the wax on them which will stay there until I wash it out.



The fabric below is a piece I tied in knots and dyed by dipping one end into red dye and the other into blue dye and then painting the blue and red together in the center. This one still needs to be waxed and then I will dye it again.


I'm sure some of this fabric will find its way into my art at some point. I'm excited to begin to use. it.

2 comments:

  1. It looks like you are really enjoying this course Arja. The results are pretty interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are right, I am really enjoying it. I hope I'm able to get the hang of it.

    ReplyDelete