Over and Over-Dyed Soy Wax Batik Silk Scarf

I was putting together items for our upcoming Cutting Edge Show, which we are setting up tomorrow at Studios on the Park, Studiosonthepark.org  when I  noticed an area on one of my scarves that was just too dark and blotchy.  So I tried using discharge paste to lighten it and that didn't work out well at all.  It made it worse. So then I over-dyed it, first securing a lot of the circular designs with rubber bands so they would be protected and still show up.  I then used some cerulean and fuchsia on it in select spots, wrapped it in plastic and let it cure 24 hours.  It looks a lot better now, not so blotchy and the yellow just glows beautifully.

Soy Wax Ice Dyed Fabrics

Here are some of the soy wax ice-dyed fabrics I created at last weekend's fabulous workshop given by Nick and Chase of Dragonfly Dyeworks  http://www.dragonflydyeworks.com/ at SLO Creative Studios http://www.slo-creative.com/

 

This a cotton gauze piece. Love the values and textures I got using the wax with the ice. 

I used a stencil of bamboo trees in the center.  Although you can't really see them clearly, 

it still made a great design I think.

 

This fabric is an overdyed one.  Below is the arashi shibori piece I started with.  You can see glimpses of it through the soy wax and ice dyed patterns. 

 

Above  and below are  silk pieces.

Great Dyeing Workshop by Dragonfly Dyeworks at SLO Creative Studios

I took a great class this weekend at the SLO Creative Studios http://www.slo-creative.com
We made a lot of great fabric in two days.  The class was taught by Nick and Chase from Dragonfly Dyeworks, http://www.dragonflydyeworks.com/   They are based in the Los Angeles area and give workshops here, there and everywhere.  If you get the opportunity to go to one, DO IT! They are both very knowledgeable about all aspects of surface design and fabrics.  Jan, the owner of SLO Creative Studio was our hostess.  We all learned a lot and had great fun doing so.

Below is a picture of Nick and Chase holding one of their lovely ice dyed fabrics.

Here are a few more of their fabulous fabrics that received lots of oohs and ahs from the class.

 

On the first day we did a soy wax resist with ice dyeing. Below is 

one of mine  with wax applied, that was already hand dyed, but needed a little something more.

 Below is a picture

 of Candace's fabric with soy on it.

 Cathy using a stencil with soy wax on her gold fabric.

Stay tuned for more on this great workshop including pictures of how it all turned out! Right now, it's back to lesson planning and gearing up for another week of teaching.

Beautiful Skies and Soy Wax Batik with Textile Paint

This last week's weather brought some incredibly beautiful skies that I want to share with you. It was like the sky was on fire.

Here are two of my soy wax batik samples from last week's class.

Interesting transparency of colors on this.  I painted all of it in yellows and oranges, 

added wax patterns, then painted it in blues and greens. 

I was using this to demonstrate while teaching, so my concentration could have been better. I find it difficult to talk and create at the same time and do both well.  Language is a left brain function, whereas painting is right brain. There has been a lot of research on this issue which I find to be true and fascinating.  I'm always reminding my middle school students to turn down the left brain and turn  up the right brain when they are creating.  They respond that they can 'multi-task.'  However, the latest research on multi-tasking shows neither task is done as well.  I'm sure there are exceptions regarding this as I find that I can cook and talk on the phone at the same time pretty well, as long as it's not a new,  complicated recipe.  But when it comes to designing and creating, I don't want distractions.

  How do you feel about that?  Let me know.

Soy Wax Batik Class

Yesterday I taught a class on Soy Wax Batik to some members of the Almond Country Quilt Guild.  Nineteen people had signed up, but only 16 were actually able to make it, which turned out to be a more manageable number after all.  They made some wonderful pieces of art.  I think some of them were surprised to find out what they were capable of creating.  Here's some pictures of their work.

I think this piece was Lisa's, but it could also be Judilyn's. It's so exciting

 when you put a second color over the first waxing and see the design emerge. 

 Above is Lynne working on her project.  Her fabric

 had an overall print of circles to begin with.  

Wish I had a picture of her finished piece.  It was really great.

 This is Linda H.'s piece in process.  It also turned out to be very lovely. 

 Here's Dora working on hers.  Wonderful mark making and color choices.

 Here's Kathy putting on the final dark paint after crackling the wax.

 Here's Elizabeth's underwater scene.

 A lovely bubble piece hanging outside to dry. Not quite sure who's this was.

  I'm thinking it was Judilyn's.

Lovely swirls and other circular designs with great colors.

 Not quite sure who created this piece.

It was a very hot day and we did have some issues with drying the wax and the painted pieces outside. At home, I allow the wax to set up in my studio.  After applying a layer of paint, I hang it outside on a line to dry. The church hall, although very nice, did not have the facilities to accommodate these methods.  It seemed as though the wax was remelting due to the sun and some gals even had the misfortune of having their waxed designs disappear, which was very disappointing.  The melting temperature of soy wax is supposedly about 140 to 180 degrees so it was surprising that it re-melted in the 95 degree heat.  I think there was a negative reaction of the plastic between the fabric and foam core board that possibly caused it.  We worked around it as best as we could and students produced some wonderful pieces.

Thanks to Dora, Linda and Cyndi who arrived early to help set up tables, extension cords, paints, etc. I brought tons of stuff for this workshop, most of my studio, it seemed.  Thanks to everyone for their great positive attitudes as we worked out some weather related issued I had not experienced in doing soy wax batik previously.  Thanks for all the help in cleaning up at the end and repacking all my junk.  It was great fun!  Hope everyone brings their ironed out pieces to Monday's meeting.  Would love to get some pics of the finished masterpieces.

Soy Wax Batik with Dye-na-Flow Paints

Yesterday I batiked some silk and cotton using Dye-na-Flow paints.

I first waxed the large circle grids to preserve some of the white, then painted on the yellow and orange.

Then I used a tool that was rectangular with diamond openings

 to preserve some of the yellow and orange areas.  After the wax dried, I painted black over it.

After the black dried, I placed it in the freezer (read that you get more cracking this way) and then twisted it to get the wax go fall off.  I did too much twisting, too much wax came out, but I didn't know it at the time.  I then applied black over the whole piece and let it dry.  Closeup is below. I like it but wish it didn't have quite so much black.

This is a silk scarf.  Again I preserved some white areas, then painted yellows and oranges on it. Next I waxed over some of the yellow and orange areas, then applied blue paint.  Really like this one.

More Soy Wax Batik with Textile Paint

The paint has dried, been heat set, fabrics ironed and washed and here they are.

I added more paint and texture to the one shown in my last week's blog post.

Above and below, I am using a couple of some new tools

 purchased from thrift stores to create patterns in wax, 

both on the white fabric and after a layer of paint has been applied.

On this one, more paint was stenciled and stamped on after it was batiked.

In this picture you can clearly see the difference between the front and back of the fabric.  Because this is paint,  rather than dye, it does not permeate the fabric.

Soy Wax Batik with Paint

I had a chance to play around with soy wax and textile paints yesterday.  Lots of fun.

 First I put imprinted wax onto the white fabric, then painted it with yellow,

 yellow-green, and yellow-orange.

After drying the fabric I did more waxing using a variety of objects dipped into the wax

 and painted on darker colors.  

Above is the dried, ironed fabric.  Most of the wax is removed, but I will do the final very hot washing in a few days after I'm sure the paint is totally cured.  I know the ironing does heat setting too, but don't want to lose any color.  This is one side of the fabric and below is the other.  Although the paint is transparent, the sides are a little different due to using paint as opposed to dye.  I kind of like that, in that it gives you more options in using the fabric.

Below is my sweet dog napping in the sun on the bed in my studio.

Shiva Paintstiks Again

In my last post, I shared how I used some oil based paintstiks to create a design in the border areas of one of the quilts I'm working on.  Here is another example of how these easy to use paintstiks can create color, light and texture in your artwork.  I know I sound like an advertisement for them, but believe I'm not getting any money from anyone for promoting their use.  I just feel they are a wonderful resource to have handy to use when you need them.  This is my quilt entitle Entangled II.  I had used soy wax batik to  protect an orange, low-immersion dyed background and then used thickened black dye to paint the tree branches.  However, in the 24 hour curing process, the soy wax, which is very low temperature, melted, which caused some of the  black dye to wander into the background areas.  So instead of getting the rich contrast between the orange and the black, which I was hoping for, the background looked rather dark. So I tried using the painstiks using a rubbing technique over some unmounted rubber texture stamps to get some light back into the background.  I feel it worked well to provide the contrast I wanted.  What do you think?