Indonesian Batiks Hot Wax painting
Materials: Paper, Paraffin wax, bleached muslin, peeled crayons, small glass jars or dollar store muffin tin, electric frying pans, pitcher, stiff brushes, pencils, black markers, 3 rit dyes in different colors, 3 large containers (I used dollar store tins) rubber gloves (dollar store) wooden spoons (dollar store) newspaper and iron (we will not use the iron in class).
Introduce the lesson with the Indonesian Batiks Powerpoint.
There are serval videos on youtube to show you different styles and ways of making batiks.
Procedures:
- Drawing: Draw a simple (no detail drawing on paper, then outline with a medium black marker. Place muslin fabric flat on the table and trace the black marker (either in black or pencil if they don’t want lines to show).
- Painting: In a muffin tin, I put the paraffin wax (white) in each of the muffin cups. Then, put a different color of peeled crayon in each (the more broken up your crayons, the faster they melt!) Fill the frying pan 3/4 full of water & turn on about 10 minutes before you need it. Students use their drawing as a guide to paint the muslin like a coloring page!
- Dyeing: After the piece of muslin is painted, students crumble their pieces of muslin over the trash can. This removes excess wax residue. Next, choose the color of dye you want for the rest of the white muslin. You can dip it into multiple colors or just one or do it like tie dye. Let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes per color. The longer it sits, the more saturated the color will be.
- Optional Step: Printing and Removing wax: Place the batik face-down on a white piece of paper. Sandwich the batik and paper between 4 or 5 sheets of newspaper. Use the iron to iron over the designs. The wax will melt left over crayons color and wax onto the paper. (THE COLOR FROM THEY CRAYONS MAY BLEED OR DISAPPEAR DEPENDING ON HOW LONG YOU USE IT!)
