Final Steps in Batik

When the final color is the value you want it to be, dry it all well and put a final coat of wax over the entire piece of rice paper. (see below)

Freeze it for 5 minutes. While it is freezing, mix up some strong color in a separate cup (this is to keep the wax out of your palette.) In the past, I have used a black mixture, but you can also use dark green, blue, violet, or blue.

Remove the painting from the freezer and crumble it up in a ball. This will loosen some of the wax. Shake excess into the trash.

With a stiff (OLD) brush, push some of the dark color into the cracks. You can do all of the page, or you can pick and choose the places you want this dark batik look. In the picture below, you will see black lines in the snow...I'm wishing I'd used some blue instead for a gentler look.

IRONING OFF THE WAX

You will need lots of newsprint or paper bags or brown packing paper. Set an iron to a medium setting.

Lay about 3 layers on the bottom, set your picture on the top, then top that with three more layers of paper.

Be sure to cover all the painting. Iron until you see the wax melt onto the paper.

Change the paper and iron again.

Repeat until you see no wax residue coming from your painting.

MOUNTING THE BATIK

You can now mount your batik onto a WHITE surface. I usually just use my less expensive watercolor paper (Like Canson XL, Strathmore, etc.). I use Matt medium for the glue, but other glues will work. Just please don't use Elmers school glue.

Next week I am showing how I mount it on a piece of hard panel with a gallery wrap.

Step One:

Prepare the board by brushing on GAC or other prep that will protect the surface from any oils or color in the wood. (If you already have a board primed and gessoed, you don't have to do this) Put two coats of gesso on top of that and dry completely.

Step Two:

Find the center of the painting. Cover the board with Matt medium gel. (IF the painting is large, you may have to do that in stages so it doesn't dry too quickly) Center the painting on the board, and gently smooth out the wrinkles. I usually put a piece of wax paper over the painting and use a brayer to smooth it out. This prevents the paint from coming off onto the brayer and your fingers. 

Dry this completely. When the batik is mounted and dried, you are ready to make any corrections you want to make.

Angela Fehr does a video about mounting on a panel. She shows how to do it with regular WC paper. My steps are similar (she uses a commercial primer first, which replaces the GAC sealant and gesso). Also, with rice paper, I do not seal with wax. I just use a Kamar varnish. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B82Vs0XBcII

MAKING CORRECTIONS

Any time you want to make corrections, which should be on a dry, mounted paper, try using watercolor first. Sometimes there is a wax residue that resist the watercolor, but often it is fine. Mounting the batik gives the paper some stability and also allows some control over the paint.

If You lost some whites try: white gouache; posca pen; bleed proof white.

If you want a light color over a dark color, you can use gouache, or even pastels.

Other things you can try for small corrections are: watercolor pencils; inktense sticks or pencils; tiny bits of white fluid acrylics; posca pens; black permanent pens; pastels.

Wax Batik Christmas Card

Wax Batik in Watercolor

Watercolor Batik uses wax as a resist, and then it is completely removed at the end.

I learned this method of painting about 12 years ago, and I love it. Each artist, of course, has their own twist on how to do it, what works for her . I love the look, but it takes some preparation. Here are a few that I have done in batik:

Today's project: Snowman Card

"Feed Me"

Katy

"It's a Jungle Out Here"

                                                                Bird of Paradise

This time we are doing a simple (about 4 waxes) Christmas Card. If you are just learning the technique, you need to keep it simple, with very few small shapes. Keep the size around 12 inches...much bigger takes a lot more time; smaller makes the shapes so small it is hard to control the wax.

Supplies:

Rice paper, about 30gsm, like ginwashi, kinwashi, or unryu

A wax pot (I use a small skillet) that can be set to temp of 180 to 200

Old brushes that will only be used for waxing

wax paper/butcher paper

water proof pen

brushes and watercolor paints

Before I begin the steps, I want to give some safety measurements and caution.

1. The wax must be kept at 180 to 200 degrees. Cooler, it will clump up. Higher... and you will see it smoke...it can burn and catch fire. I am using silicon padding underneath it.

SO: please turn it off when not in use. And give the person using it some space.

2. This paper is strong enough when dry, but fragile when wet. ALWAYS keep a backing on it (like the wax paper) when moving it or drying it. Small tears can be repaired, but it's better not to rip it.

3. ONLY USE WAX BRUSHES. They are just brushes designated to be used with wax. Do not use your good brushes. Once you dip a brush in the wax, that is all that brush is good for.

Step One

Draw your sketch and shrink it to about half a sheet of copy paper. You are going to make a "map" of values to show which areas to wax 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

Leave everything that will be white, white on the paper. This is everything that you will wax first, before you paint your first layer.

Color in everything that is the next (light) value with a colored pencil or marker, say blue. This is your second wax...after you paint your first layer, before your 2nd layer of paint.

Color your next value with another colored pencil, say red. That will be your third wax, before you paint a third layer of paint.

Continue until you have all your values a different color.

This "map" is about 4 x 6

Step Two

After you have designed your painting, it should be drawn to the size of the paper you want to use.

Set the sketch underneath the rice paper and trace the picture.

Then use a water-proof fine tip marker to trace over the lines. (You don't HAVE to do this,

but water will wash away your lines, and you might have to redraw if in pencil)

Step Three -  1st WAX

Heat the wax to 180-200 degrees F. NO HIGHER. It can cause a fire.

Use ONLY brushes designated for wax...it does not come out.

Set your rice paper sketch on top of the shiny side of the butcher paper. This is to protect the work surface from the wax.

Melt the wax and pick some up with your brush. You have to work quickly, as it dries fast.

Carefully wax all the areas that will remain white. (See all the #1's in the sketch...

The white areas in the colored pencil drawing in step 1)

I also SPATTER wax before painting to get some snowflakes. I ignored the face features and just waxed over the entire face...I'll put the tiny details in later.

Step 4 - PAINT 

Here is one area where I learned differently from some of the videos. I paint everything over with a light value, even if it will eventually be a dark value. In the videos, they paint mostly the areas that are light value. Either way, you next dry the painting completely. I often use a fan to help with this. You can use a hair dryer on LOW only....otherwise the wax can remelt. 

STEP 5 - WAX Again

Look for the areas with a #2 or blue on my map. Wax only these areas next. Then paint a darker value over these areas. (Again, I paint everything, gradually increasing my other values, but you can do just those areas.) Spatter again.

Step 5 - Paint again

Paint everything over with a darker value. You can choose those colors in specific places if you want to.

Repeat wax-paint-dry- cycle until you have the darkest values you want in your picture. 

If your wax gets a bit out of control or you accidentally drip on something unintended, don't get upset. We can fix anything.

Next week:

Finishing the batik/waxing off/mounting/making corrections.

Here are some tutorials you might want to watch:

Kathy George: 2-hour tutorial

(371) Little French Pitcher Batik - Watercolor Lesson with Guest Artist Kathie George - YouTube

Angela Fehr with guest batik artist: 30 min

https://www.google.com/search?q=batik+watercolor+painting&rlz=1CATRIY_enUS1088&oq=batik+watercolor&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgBEAAYgAQyCQgAEEUYORiABDIHCAEQABiABDIHCAIQABiABDIICAMQABgWGB4yCggEEAAYDxgWGB4yCAgFEAAYFhgeMggIBhAAGBYYHjIICAcQABgWGB4yCAgIEAAYFhgeMggICRAAGBYYHtIBCTg3NTdqMGoxNagCCLACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:31eef589,vid:ChSWOATH9us,st:0

Watercolor Grounds

 Watercolor Grounds

Grounds are mediums that enable you to paint on substrates--surfaces--that you might not be able to paint watercolor on. They can also change it, add textures, or add background color.

We broke a piece of paper (or some used matte board) into 8 sections, and applied different grounds in 6 of those sections: Titanium White, Light Dimensional, Gold, Buff, Black, and Transparent. The last two spaces were reserved for Textural Medium and Lift Preparation. (see below) Before putting the transparent ground on, we put a mark or picture on the area.

We drew pictures to paint in each section. Here are a few ideas.

We tried painting on each section. Try to use a picture with texture on the dimensional ground.

On the black, use light, paint lightened with white, or iridescent medium. 

Here is an owl done on the dimensional ground.

What I'd like people to notice are three things:

1. The ease of painting on ground

2. Whether or not the paint can be lifted

3. How bright and intense the paint appears.

In the section for lifting Prep, Apply lifting Prep on half the paper.

Paint staining colors in bars--pthalos, purples, or reds. When dry,

try to lift part for on the prep side, and on the untreated side.

Compare how much or how easily it can be be lifted.

On the texture side, just paint a wash and see the kind of texture

it creates. In the picture below, I used gum Arabic on the clouds and

texture medium on the red ground.