I worked with my new Tjanting tools this morning. Batiks are nothing new to me, but I’ve always used a brush to apply the wax to paper. Having to create batik for the CHA Gallery piece, I thought it was time to upgrade to the Tjanting tools. After all, it will help me to apply wax to the surface faster than if I used a brush.Painting on silk is also not new to me, but I use gutta as a resist. Using gutta allows me to be consistent in the width of my lines. I need to work on controlling the wax in the Tjanting tool to get more consistency in the width of my lines. That will take a little practice.
Today, I created two medium-sized rice-paper batiks (10 by 10-inch). Same design, painted differently, using watercolor paint instead of dye. Because these are test samples, I didn’t want to break out the dye and I knew the watercolor paint would work just fine. The medium-sized paper batiks continue to dry. I will remove the wax from them tomorrow.
I also created two smaller paper batik images that would not take as long to dry. Impatient as I am, I wanted to make sure I was able to complete a sample or two today. These smaller samples are less complex in design, but were also a valuable learning tool. The graphic above shows the two small hearts that I created today.
The finished CHA Gallery piece is still not fully designed but will be a silk batik using dyes from I Love To Create (also on Facebook). The design will also use paper and wire.
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