A TECHNIQUE DRIVEN Blog dedicated to mastery of surface design techniques. First we dye, overdye, paint, stitch, resist, tie, fold, silk screen, stamp, thermofax, batik, bejewel, stretch, shrink, sprinkle, Smooch, fuse, slice, dice, AND then we set it on fire using a variety of heat tools.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

2-layer batiks and tjanting drops

Letting loose and just playing in a struggle for me, almost counter-intuitive.  Plus there's the old Yankee imperative of not 'wasting' which impedes the open creativeness to really play with fibers and materials to see what they'll do.  However, with the help of my friends I'm working on a recovery program!  lol

Here I've laid in a flower pattern with a heart-shaped whisk (who knew there were so many whisk patterns?), then allowed the wax to drop in random places, with little strings of the wax here and there.  I had first sponged on some pale blue and purple, then waxed, then sponged on heavier, darker purple.  I like the contrast of the light blue and the dark purple.
Here I waxed in circles on the white silk using various sizes of cardboard tubes from paper towels and T-paper.  The whole piece was then painted a bright green, allowed to dry, then waxed with a stamp made to look like a Chinese chop.  The stamp was made by cutting pieces of those styrofoam trays that come with various meats and veggies from the grocery store.  The tiny pieces are then glued to a small piece of 1" wood to make a stamp.
The whole fabric was then painted with black, then ironed to remove the wax.  I wish that I had used more variation in tone when painting on the green layer, because I really like the few places where the color play is light-to-dark.

   

A giant wire hand was used on this piece as well as a spiral whisk and a tjanting for the drops.  It has one layer of purple/blue paint.   I made this for my husband who's a hand therapist.

5 comments:

  1. These are wonderful. I especially like the green one.

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  2. Love them all!! I've been busy today, have some pieces soaking in a dye bath right now, hopefully I'll have some pictures tomorrow. It's been in the 70s the past few days, making it easy to spend time waxing & dyeing in my garage.

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  3. Marvelous patterns, and I love the light/dark contrasts! And don't think of these as wasteful... there are lots of ways you can use the fabric, and you are growing your skillset as well. Besides, who says we aren't supposed to have fun? Enjoy yourself!

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