Batik is a method of decorating a fabric using a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are found in such places as Indonesia, Malaysia, China and India.
Batik is something I have never done before, but I thought for “Mommy Art Camp” we’d give it a go. I was not armed with the proper tools. It would have been helpful to have a Tjanting, a tool used to draw precise lines of wax onto the material by allowing a small amount of wax to flow from an attached reservoir. We would have to do without.
I melted the batik wax in my handy dandy candle maker. We then dipped some bristle brushes into the wax and proceeded to paint the fabric. We had to work quickly, hot drippy wax doesn’t stay hot and drippy for long. Creating our pattern took quite some time. By the end I was exhausted, but pleased with our work and we had tons of fun. After our pattern was done we dyed the fabric in our washing machine according to the RIT dye instructions, then took it outside for a tie-dye lesson from Dad.
I have yet to get the wax off of the fabric. If the 105º day today doesn’t do it for me, I plan on sticking it into a pot of boiling water. The wax should come right off and just float to the top of the pot.
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