Batik Tutorial

 I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend a "workday" with my sister and several of her artist friends. They are all current or former art teachers. What a great day we had! Most of us worked on a batik square. Mine is above. Not great, but I learned a lot and had fun doing it! The tutorial below is for a fairly simple method that you can do at home if you use liquid Rit dyes instead of the more expensive Procion dyes that my sister supplied. (Another artist was using Rit dyes and has had success with them.)

1. Melt paraffin in a crock pot over low heat. Be sure you put this on to melt well in advance of needing it, but you should watch any time you mix heat and wax. If you do not want your batik to have as "crackled" a texture as mine, use beeswax in with your paraffin. The more beeswax, the less crackle.

2. If using professional ingredients, you need powdered dyes, sodium alginate (to thicken the dye) and soda ash to make it more permanent.

3. Mix with hot water. You will want several disposable containers so that each has a different color. If using Rit dyes, just pour into containers.

4. Draw your design on muslin that you have stretched and taped to a board. Put newspaper underneath the fabric to absorb dye and wax. Use a light pencil or a Frixion pen (heat sensitive ink that can be removed with an iron) to draw your design.

5. If you want areas to remain white, brush those areas with the melted paraffin. Brush your dye everywhere else, coloring everything the way you want. Let your dye dry well. Some dyes need longer than others to set. Check the instructions on your dye.

6. Brush the melted wax over any color you wish to preserve. I wanted the final black dye to make lines between my swirls of water, so I left an unwaxed area between each swirl. (It looks like a lighter color in the photo.)

7. When the wax is dry, remove the cloth from the board and wad up to crackle the wax.

8. Place in a large zipper bag and pour black dye over it. Alternatively, you can brush the black dye over your fabric. Leave for a little while in the dye. The longer you leave it, the darker it will become. Remove it from the bag and rinse well. (Wear protective gloves unless you want black dye on your skin!)

9. Place the fabric between several layers of newspaper and use an old iron to melt as much of the was out of the fabric as you can. As layers of newspaper soak up wax, remove and replace them. 

10. This was my finished batik.

This was so much fun! I will definitely try it again! Thank you so much, Judy, for hosting us today!

 For a "kid friendly" and kitchen friendly method of batik using washable school glue, see an older tutorial School Glue Resist .
If you use the Rit dyes with the School Glue Resist method, you will have a more permanent color.