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.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

My attempts at the Kemshall Technique

Yep, FIVE had fun on Saturday.  Here are my two attempts at the Kemshall Technique for soy wax batik.

 This first attempt is two sides of the same fabric--brown on one side and blue on the other. As you can see there is some bleed through.  One thing we learned on Saturday is that the thickness of the dye paste does make a difference. The thinner the paste, the more bleed through you will get.  Not that that is necessarily bad.  You just have to make a decision about the effect you want.



This second piece is raspberry on one side and brown on the other. Here I got even more bleed through because the dye paste was quite thin.  The second thing I learned here is to let the dye paste sit for a few minutes after adding the dye powder.  Red is difficult anyway but here  you can really see the little red dots from the dye.  Perhaps a little more time given it to dissolve might have helped.

At any rate, if you keep a jar of clear dye paste sitting around waiting to be used, this technique is very quick and easy!

2 comments:

  1. They turned out great! Bleed through means the waxed spots are slightly coloured as well? I kind of like that effect here.

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  2. They look great. Yes, the consistency of the dye paste was a valuable lesson to learn.

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