2015 Unit 1-Year 9 Batik - How We Organise Oursleves

As Year nine students we are looking at the concepts of connection.  We have liken our school to a beehive and used this as a base to develop our visual images.  We are half way through making our Batik pictures. Michael in the image below is just starting to chalk his design onto the cotton material. Although it's hard to see in this photo everybody developed they designs first onto newsprint.  We went over this with a large black felt pen so we could see our designs when transferring on the cotton.

The next stage is to go over the chalk lines with hot wax using either a brush or a tjanting waxing tool.

Ruben and Tarani are showing the first dye stage.  We are applying cold water paper dye, using light shades to start with,  to add colour to the material.  Where the wax is  at this stage will stay white. The wax acts as a sealing agent.  It locks the colour in.

We then leave the material to dry overnight.  The next day we add in pattern and line and build up interesting textures to our work.  Where the wax goes this time will seal the colour that we are waxing over. When we first put the wax on the material will look wet.  We choose a different colour dye.  This will make our patterns stand out more and give our work depth.