SIMPLIFIED WAX BATIK - FINISHING

 FINAL WAX:

When you are satisfied with the painting, cover everything with wax.

Put it in the freezer for about 5 minutes to harden wax.

When the wax is cool, crinkle up the painting to create little cracks. On the right of the picture you can see the crumbs of wax that have brushed off after I crinkled the paper. It's messy. It still has a lot of wax on it, but some crumbs flake off. If you do this part over a waste basket, it helps.

Using either black ink or watercolor (or dark blue or any other color you wish), force dark color into the cracks with a stiff brush. (like hog bristle....you don't want to ruin good brushes). This step is optional. But I want it to create an antique looking background that I'd originally left white.

I often like to wrinkle small areas at a time and put the dark color/ink in the cracks. It gives me a little more control over where and how much black goes on.

  

Dry completely.

REMOVE THE WAX:

You will need an iron (not your good one), layers of newspaper, and clean white or manilla paper.

Shake off as much wax as you can, gently.

Layer newspaper like this: 2-3 layers newspaper, 1 layer white paper, PAINTING, 1 layer white paper, 2-3 layers newspaper. Like a sandwich. 

 Go over all this with hot iron until the papers become saturated with wax.

    

Repeat this process, using clean newsprint and paper each time, until you don't see any more wax appear. ...

It's now ready to adhere to white watercolor paper. 

MOUNT THE PAINTING:

This mounting process is much like mounting masa paper. You can use your lower quality watercolor paper as a backing for this. Apply your glue to the watercolor paper, and brush it around thoroughly. Lay your painting over that, then use wax paper and either roll with a brayer or smooth with your hands to remove any air bubbles. Sandy Maudlin suggests wall paper paste. 

Any pieces of rice paper that have torn can be mended at this time, simply by gluing them down.

WHEN DRY, you can continue to work on your painting to some degree. You can paint, use pen and ink, and so on to add details or fix mistakes. You can even tone the paper (that you mount it on) with extra color to show through lighter areas, but don't get rid of all your beautiful whites.

STUDENT WORK:

Nora's, shown below, is mounted and nearly done. Later, she darkened the neck of the vase to bring it out a little. I believe she only used two or three waxes.

Diane's (below) had a rip on the right hand side and a place on the top right that needed mending.

I showed the ragged edge on the top right so you can see where we tore off some of the rice paper to glue over and "patch" the damaged area on the very top. She added some red to the flowers before calling it finished.

I love the glow that you get from wax batik!