Jananas

Yesterday was day two of the Modern Batik workshop. Day one was a little frustrating at times, but as day two came to show this was mainly because my artistic vision was leaps and bounds ahead of my skills and abilities. By day two I was starting to get the hang of applying hot wax with a paintbrush and without having it spread. This made me super happy because it means that there is hope.

I didn’t have a lot more painting to do yesterday. I finished up the water, although because of how fragmented this was it took longer than you would think. Here the piece is all covered in wax.

Its kind of crazy how much the wax changes the colours. It can be hard sometimes to remember exactly what you did in one segment and once its covered in wax you can’t even refer back to it. Again, that sort of knowledge might come in time. On day one/two, not so much

Next up was taking the most of the wax off through a combination of physical battery and ironing. At this point it looks like real art, but it still isn’t finished. I didn’t much like the step of having to beat the piece around to try and get the excess wax off, but I admittedly really liked ironing it because it was fun (in my books) to see the wax come through the various layers of newsprint.

Last step was using a calligraphy pen and some indelible india ink to line the piece. Technically I should have inked all the clouds/background as well, but I wanted it to fade into the, well, background. This part was pretty fun as well as you can see the piece come together as you go. The sad part was that clutching the pen made my hand start cramping up, which is sad because I’ve been having problems with my right hand lately. In part due to too much crafting.

Tada, the finished piece. Not surprising, its another interpretation of the Mazinaw Rock landscape. I’m proud of how it turned out, especially for my first piece. My dad likes it so much that when we were over for dinner last night he snagged it to have it framed!

Overall, I really enjoyed the workshop and Roxane at Poetic Art has a great little studio space to hold classes in (and a lovely gallery in general). Now I’m plotting and planning trying to figure out where in my already busy schedule I can find time to put aside for some more batik experimentation.

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