Keyboard batik

My brown linen pants were inadvertently tarnished when I tried to bleach our bathtub.  With the leftover dye, I dyed an old batik I had created, but never bothered to finish.  Voila.. keyboard batik.

wayang pt 2

My workspace.


I spent the morning cleaning out the tools that were given to me. They had lots of resin in them and there was some oxidation, but after getting them cleaned out, they worked beautifully.


I had spent the night before sketching out Wayang Kulit characters. This morning I continued to do so. One of the links that I used was this one, which describes Balinese Wayang.

After cleaning out the tools I waxed two pieces of cloth. This one's not going to be so complicated in terms of color. I'm thinking of doing either brown or black to match the wayang pieces that were in the box of tools that I got.

maker faire!!!

I've been accepted into makerfaire! I'm pretty excited. They said it wouldn't be a problem since I already have an article in Craft, but still. I've always wanted to attend, but now it's even better - I'm going to be a maker!!!

Happy Valentines Day!!!!

For si's birthday I made him a surprise batik of an underwater seascape - only it was 40" x 46" so it was a bit too big to hide! Made me nervous having the stretcher bars in the laundry room behind the washer. Worse yet was trying to hide large pails of blue dye.. Nervous! Anyways, here it is. I didn't post about the process to my blog simply because I was fearful si would see it before his birthday came. I used the usual beeswax, and procion mx cold water dye. Only the bucket was too small, and so some of the wax cracked in the process. Because I got wax stains while ironing out the wax onto the blue parts, I decided to make more mistakes and give the water more of a mottled look (borrowing from tom, my ceramics instructor).

It's done!

With Thursday's interview done, I felt a surge to finish up the lantern batik. It's done and framed. I went to Blick yesterday after the house showing to buy a stretcher frame 30 x 32".

In the evening, I painted on the cables. I'm too happy with the bottom right hand cable - I think it feels a bit unrealistic to me, but otherwise, I couldn't be happier. Now I'm trying to figure out where to put it in the dining room.

The cables

Sometimes I like to mock things up in photoshop first before actually putting things onto fabric. I had initially imagined the cables for the lanterns piece to go a certain way but after drawing it out i decided that it didn't look as good as I thought it did in my mind.

Ironing out the wax

The reason why I like doing batik is because like most types of craft, a lot of elements are unpredictable - how they dye will turn out, how the wax will interact with the dye, etc. Today I ironed out the wax from my lantern piece and I have to say that I'm very happy with the results.

Here is the piece so far - I have it lying on the couch for picture purposes - I still have to paint on the cables/lines for the lanterns - somehow the lanterns look funny just floating in the background. I'm not very happy about the black though - it still seems mottled - and I would like a darker background. Black never comes out right for me except when I do it up on small swatches. I'll have to continue experimenting.


I set up in the kitchen today to iron out the wax - partially because there's a little window, and the range hood to dispel of fumes, and partially because I don't have an ironing board, partially because I have easy access to old newspapers and paper towels. So here is the set up - newspaper + paper towel.


You're supposed to replace the paper towel frequently so you don't get such a big wax ring around the object you're ironing. This worked quite well with ONE of the lanterns. I don't like to waste paper so much, so the other lanterns had waxy rings around them - I'll have to work with it!

Raycafix

I finished laundering the piece and it looks not bad. I think I'm going to have to make some additions in white fabric paint, but otherwise, everything turned out as planned. However, I really dislike how the black bleeds, and so, I remembered an old bottle of Raycafix, which I used on the fabric after rinsing once. (I shouldn't have rinsed and just used the Raycafix). Stopped the bleeding short. Will have to try it again next time. I didn't quite use really hot water, as the instructions said. Just hotter than warm.


Here are the pieces drying in the back pantry.

Following instructions

I'm generally not someone that follows instructions too well, but when it comes to dyeing, following instructions IS A GOOD THING. Actually most of the time I've had to come up with my own instructions, but after I come up with a set of good instructions, I follow them to a T. Today I did the final dye of my lantern batik, and I'm in the process of waiting for the dye to set. I used a mixture of black, warm black and red.

I have been having problems with mottled dye effects on large surfaces, so I decided to experiment with immersion dyeing this time round, which is essentially, a large vat of dye which the cloth is immersed into for a period of time.

Instructions as follows:

1. Soak fabric for 15 mins in lukewarm water.
2. Fill a pail up with 3L of warm water.
3. In 2 cups of hot water, dissolve 1/3 cup salt and 1/2 tsp of dye. (Use more dye if using black or turquoise)
4. Let the fabric sit in the dye for 10 mins.
5. While waiting, in a separate container, mix 1tbsp soda ash with 1 cup of warm water. Stir until fully dissolved.
6. Remove fabric from dye.
7. Add soda ash solution to bucket and stir.
8. Return fabric to the bucket and stir around for a bit. Let sit for an hour, stirring occasionally.

This is the recipe I'm following. The instructions are a mix of what was obtained from the prochemical site, the Paul Birch site, and the G and S dyes site, as well as the instructions on the back of the container.

It seems like the color is developing evenly, so perhaps we won't see the streaky effects of painting. Will have more pictures of the result after I take the fabric out of the dye bath.

Blocking fire engine red

I've been using a photoshopped photo of lanterns in my kitchen to come up with the shadow gradients on this batik. I blocked the fire engine red today. Was having some trouble with wax not seeping in. I suspect it was because I didn't wash the salt out. At least I'll have more definitive lines. It seems that when I'm applying on freshly washed cloth, the wax is a lot more fluid.

The white parts look really good. Am looking forward to applying the bronze red dye soon. I have to look for a supplier of dye over here in the South Bay. It is too taxing to drive all the way up to Santa Monica.

Also the pencil markds did end up showing through though I traced them out once again. I hope they don't show through once I remove the wax. This time I'm going to try using castile soap to wash out the dye. Perhaps the black will come out better, though I'm hesitant because I don't want to ruin the piece. Better to try out swatches first.

Fire engine red

I'm using unbleached muslin now. I blocked yesterday using the new beeswax, and today I applied the fire engine red. Looks really good on the unbleached muslin. Like there's more depth. I wonder whether the whites will turn out and whether I'll have to use paint in the end?


One annoying thing - the pencil lines are gone! This didn't happen before, and I'm wondering if it's because the muslin makes the dye appear darker and less bright? I panicked for a bit, and then thought to myself that I can probably redraw them afterwards. But what if they're not the same?

I'm letting the red dry, and then I'm going to continue with drawing and blocking with beeswax. I'm thinking of using the paraffin on the sides to simulate paper. I wonder how that's going to look?

none of your beeswax!

I started a new piece a few days ago, and over the past few months I have been somewhat unsatisfied with the beeswax I am using. My dissatisfaction didn't really have a cause at the time, until I went home over Christmas and started using the wax supply I typically use for soap. As I melted it, I realized that the beeswax I was using (Jacquard 100% beeswax for batik) wasn't REALLY beeswax. It doesn't turn golden brown as you melted it, the sugars and other debris popping away in the wax as it got hotter and hotter. It also doesn't smell like carmelized sugar. It smells like chemicals, and that was when I decided I should just do away with the pot and start a new block.


left: new beeswax; right: jacquard beeswax

So today I experimented with some new beeswax that I purchased in Toronto over the holidays. The appearance is not very nice - there's all kinds of debris stuck in the block.. including a thistle! The wax itself is a dark yellow - not the brilliant yellow of the Jacquard, and it had a fine dusting on the surface. As I melted it, all the debris started coming away and fizzing and popping and sizzling in the melted wax! And as the wax got hotter and hotter still, it turned from a dark yellow into a beautiful golden brown. And the smell was fantastic! I heard flies and bees at the window. Seriously.

My thoughts are that the Jacquard beeswax is probably processed to remove sugars and other debris. Jacquard also sells white beeswax pellets, so I am sure they are capable of refining the hell out of beeswax so it doesn't quite resemble what it's supposed to be. Also I noticed that the jacquard wax is a bit stickier to touch than the natural beeswax I purchased in Toronto.