Rayna Gillman Soy Wax Batik Workshop

This was a great workshop on using soy wax to batik. Rayna is a great and generous teacher (Rayna, is that what you told me to write? LOL!) No, Rayna is not paying me to say this, I had a blast and learned SO MUCH, both from Rayna and my classmates. If you get a chance to take this or another class from Rayna, or to have her come to your guild, do it! You can tell I enjoyed it by all the pics I posted!

More Soy Wax Batik

More pieces from Rayna Gillman's class at Potomac Craftsmen this past weekend.

This piece was layered underneath the turquoise piece when I did it, resulting in the greenish splotches.
It's got all kinds of marks; some of Rayna's tjap, some potato masher, and of course the resist of the fabric. I wanted to do something bright. I painted the whole thing yellow, then used fuschia around the edges. I kinda like it.

This one was next, using up some of the dyes that I had left. I also used some wooden words I got out of the impulse bins at Michael's, painted the back and stamped them. This also has the blotches of teal on it. It was the other half of the piece of fabric I used for blotting, so the dye came through this piece, too! There's a hibiscus tjap of mine creating the resist, on top of a white on white....

This was one I batiked and screened. It's also the one I drew on, that I decided to blot. The birds were a wooden tjap that I had. It's on top of a white-on-white with birds. This is actually the back of the piece, it's a little lighter.

This is the side I screened from. There's paint on top of the wax batiked birds that will come out, I guess, when I iron the wax out. I like both sides a lot, and different ones better at different times.

Blue and Fuscia Madness

Here are two more pieces from Rayna's class. The triangles and circles are made with was using one of Rayna's tjaps. Thanks Rayna! The fainter white circular pattern that is all over the fabric is because I started with a white-on-white fabric in that pattern. The white- in the white-on-white acted like a resist. This is going to be a great way to revive a lot of white-on-white fabrics from my traditional days.

These two pieces are companions. I did the above one first, and really liked the purple I got when I mixed the fuschia and turquoise, so did another one with more turquoise and less fuschia. The teal blotches are because I tried to draw little lines on another piece, and they spread too much, so I used this (before I painted the rest of it) to blot it. I kinda like the blotches. I may spatter some more teal on top of it. Or ink in some of the "scales." The scales were done using hardware screen, as shown below.

Tools of the trade, Soy Wax Batik

We were using all sorts of things to stamp the wax, including whips (for beating egg whites, not the other kind) and mashers and hardware screen! This made lovely fishscale looking patterns that you can see below on the silk and also in the blue and pink piece above. (The silk was not mine).

Rayna Gillman Soy Wax Batik Workshop

So this is what I did this weekend: took a workshop from Rayna Gillman through Potomac Craftsmen I've always loved batik, so I jumped at the chance to take Rayna's workshop and I'm SOOOO glad I did. It was a blast! I'll be Batik Girl from now on. Now, if I can only learn how to milk soy beans so I can make my own soy wax flakes, LOL!

In the picture below, we are oohing and aahing over one of Cynthia's pieces. That's Rayna, 2d from the left, looking at Cynthia's work. After this, I don't remember anyone's names, I'm SORRY!!!! If you know some of these people, or ARE one of these people, let me know and I'll put names with the faces.

This participant already did batik, but not with soy wax. Her piece is wonderful, and half the piece is a mirror image of the other piece, as it was folded in half when she painted it.
I think some of her marks were made with potato mashers.

This participant was working with her own woven fabric. I loved the texture!