I had the time of my (recent) life at Jane's 5 day workshop at ProChemical and Dye in Fall River, Massachusetts. What a wonderful woman. We learned about making and using soy wax (mix) crayons, soy wax (mix) paste and hot wax. The crayons and paste each had it's own recipe with the crayon wax being a proprietary mix developed by Jane and Lisa Kerpoe. After experimenting with the three products, I had to see where I could fit these processes into
my work.
I felt most at home using the hot wax in my batik work. I will show the processes of experimentation I used during the 5 days.
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These were sample colors of the wax crayons and some rubbings I did of textured surfaces
This was more of the same - crayon rubbings
All three of these were done in the first or second day when we were getting different results from the 2 skillets of wax. One was running hotter than the other and was exhausting the color/wax.
This is a piece of Charmeuse and I was just beginning to "get it". I like it
One day I started with a piece of linen and the hot wax had been heated too long the previous day and when I went to paint of thickened dye, all the dye that was supposed to be in suspension ran right out and mixed with the thickened dye. I got frustrated trying to wash out the dye from the wax with water because the dyes were coloring the pretreated fabric in smears so I just tossed it in the trash can. Jane said, "Boy, you sure give up easily". I took the challenge and snatched a bit of victory from the jaws of defeat. Here is the finished piece below.
After getting out as much dye from the wax by scrubbing in water, I drizzled black wax then over dyed with turquoise thickened dye. Not bad considering I dug it out of the trash can.
Now I was starting to "get it" and found what iI wanted to do with my new knowledge and experience/experiments.
These are two scarves that look WAY better in person. All these photos were taken today with heavy overcast.
Here are some samples that I like. The first is folded, dipped in two colors of wax and dyed in the void.
Starting to like what I see (Charmeuse)
And these are my favs.
The final word on what I did in class was trying to develop what I was learning into a design technique I wanted to keep and use.
I forgot to get permission to post pictures of my classmates but here is a photo of Jane and I and also a special picture of Jane and I for my cyber quilt friend in the Netherlands, Sandra.
Sacred Circle
Eric 4
Green and Rust
