a batik printing tutorial


So today is Christmas eve and everyone is talking about Santa, and wishes and parties... so I'm going to talk about giving. Therefore I decided to give you a small, and I hope useful, gift. If you haven't guessed it yet, it's another tutorial.
This technique is called Batik printing, in which you die a textile fabric with wax and textile pigments. Here are some very easy steps:

* first, you take a piece of fabric, I used linen again, but you can pretty much use whatever you like.
* you'll have to work pretty fast, so it's better if you draw your design on the fabric, with a pencil, just light contours and guidelines. If you wish to go for something more artistic and abstract, then just do an "action printing" process (see action painting).
* then, you heat the wax, you could use special wax or simple candles.
* when the wax turns to liquid, keep it heated, then take a pipette (or dropper) fill it up with liquid wax, then trace the outlines of your design. If you wish to have large full shapes, with the colour of the fabric, the fill them up with wax. For artistic effects you could leave spaces or crack the wax (see image 2 and 4).
* take the textile pigment and put into a pot of boiling water. You'll find the quantity and instructions on the pigment's package.
* after the wax on the fabric hardens, die the fabric into boiled solution or use a brush and just go over the fabric. You could use a flat stroke or a faded one. If you boil it you could also knot the fabric or crumple it.
* leave it to dry then take a bunch of news papers and an iron. Heat the iron, place the newspaper over the waxed parts, and gently iron it, when the paper gets impregnated with wax, change the sheet. You repeat the process until all the wax is out of the fabric.
* leave it to dry then iron the fabric.

You can read more about this technique: here.
If you want a more artistic piece you cold combine this technique with the screen printing one.



You could use this type of printing for decorative objects or clothing articles. Here are some imgaes with what I've done. The first image is the fabric with wax and paint on, and the next three images are details of the fabric after I ironed the wax off.


And since is Christmas, I come with with another gift, a song. It's a bit sad but somehow it gives me this feeling of winter Holidays.

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