Batik is an amazing, high tech material that can be fabricized and applied to. The term batik comes from the word machine, because it takes a very detailed instruction book to create your own batik!
The term machine refers to the way it is produced, where a complicated set of steps is used to create your new batik. The rest of the cloth manufacturing process is the same as making any other cloth.
The term new batik refers to when people start creating their own due to availability issues or cost factors. They are the ones that use the exact same steps as before, but this time for less money!
This article will talk about some tools that help you apply batik onto fabric, giving you more expression and fun ways to apply wax and canvas.
Contents:
Hot iron
When the wax is all dry, the next step is to add some heat. This can be done using a hair dryer, t-shirt iron, or even a hot comforter.
The wax must be heated enough to melt the wax powder and then continue to heat until it is extremely hot. This takes a few minutes of real estate on your radio or TV set, but it is well worth it!
After letting it cool down a bit, you can now add your design or decoration! You can either do some soft shapes or hard surfaces, just make sure they are dry before adding the wax.
This technique is also good for removing old labels and customs from items.
Paintbrush
A paintbrush is the most basic tool for waxing. Most market batik-lined art brushes are round, with a tapered end and a broad, rounded other.
When purchasing a paintbrush, make sure that it has a rounded, tapered end and a broad, round one. These will allow you to apply more wax evenly to your skin. Also, make sure that the brush is large enough to handle thick layers of wax without being overkill! A small brush may be used for applying light waxes or eaux Toomorrows soft waxes such as caressing the skin or lightly buffed into the hair.
Plastic sheeting
It can be hard to apply wax evenly and safely on a paperbark tree. If you try one of the other tree waxes, such as the velcro tree wax, or the suction tree wax, you will see why this is important.
Paperbark trees are large and may take some time to get a good grip on. When doing a self-appliqué, make sure to leave some room for movement as the wax will come loose during drying.
Once it is dry, let it sit for at least a day to settle down before handling or cutting.
Patience
While washers are a relatively new tool to add to your waxing arsenal, they are a very valuable one. Washers are places and crevices where pieces of paper or cloth are passed through before being added to the pool of wax and then carefully pulled apart and attached.
This process is called passes through time, or times for short. The washer works by placing a few drops of wax on a smooth surface, reaching down with an oiled handle, pulling up some thick liquid wax, and then dropping the two pieces of wax together.
By having the washer tools out, you have flexibility in how you use them. By adding them to your bag of tricks, they can be accessibly ready to use right away.
Some washers come with different shapes or sizes for applying Wax.
Practice
Now that you have the batik tools, it is time to start applying wax! Carefully fold one side of the paper backing of a pen or pencil down to match up with the other side.
To apply wax, first line up your thumb and forefinger together, then slowly extend one side of the paper until it is completely covered. You can now pull both sides of the paper apart and overlap both sides as you remove more wax.
Use a steady, slow motion to apply your wax.
Skill
Knowing how to apply wax is a part skill, part technique. You can call this doing away at it, but it is really doing it!
Despite the term being for waxes, this article is not going to teach you how to apply nail polish or massage oil on your Dead Man Walking. That is a very special tool that needs to be learned at a later date!
This article will discuss how to use the disc-shaped Batik tools found in home-kit departments and boutiques as waxes. These can be used either wet or dry, and are inexpensively available through craft stores and online auction sites.
At Dead Man Walking we usually get our waxes from Marshall’s or Target. Both have pretty good quality discs that are fairly cheap.
Thin wax strips
When applying wax, it is important to make sure to have enough wax stripsoireÄô thin. If there is not enough wax on one side of the tag, then the wax will not stick.
To have enough wax for one side of a fabric tag, there must be two to four strips of wax per strip. If there are more tags in your project, then add up the extra strips and make a couple of tags.
The best way to measure your strip of wax is by holding it by the end and wrapping a finger around it. A quality Wax may be slightly wavy when being applied, making it more difficult to reach all the way through the fabric.
Wide wax strips
Another way to apply wax is to use wide strips of cloth that are the same thickness as your natural hair. These strips can be bought as Batik, which is thicker than normal cloth, or narrow, like a hairband.
The difference is that the Batik has wider holes in it to hold the wax in place, and the width of the hairband is narrower than my natural hair. The other difference is that Batik cannot be heated once applied, while narrow wax can be.
To get started, she can brush out her hair until it is perfectly smooth and then use a hairdryer to set the wax in place.