Batik.

Batik is a process I am very much new to, it basically involves melting wax (as seen above) and using jantings (also seen above) to draw and create pattern with, the wax is then left to dry and using fabric paint, you paint the areas you desire, the wax is then later lifted using an iron.

I struggled to enjoy Batik for the simple fact that my outcomes were never strong enough, I tried this first with my tutor as a trial run, it was my first time using wax as a drawing tool and I was already nervous and disheartened before I had even completed an outcome, I think this played a lot in the result due to my poor attitude towards the process. 

I decided to give it another go on my own without any distractions, I melted the wax down and made sure I set up my own table, I had my sketchbook aside of me, and knew what things I wanted to draw, using the jantings I began to draw, I was happy with the was drawings until it came to adding the fabric paint. Fabric paint is very watery and therefore it causes it to really seep through the fabric uncontrollably, I found this challenging as I was loosing control of the image I wanted to create. I took my finished painted pieces to the iron and hoped for the best, two of them out of 5 were not to bad you could see the outline detail of the lilys but not much else. The other pieces I personally don't think resembled anything but paint splashes, but I'm not sure if that's me being negative in myself, but that's for others to see and perceive for themselves. All in all I don't think batik is a process I shall visit again in a hurry but it was fun and i have leaned a new process if it is needed in future for university. I have researched some amazing and certainly inspirational Batik artists and those can be found in my a3 visual diary, along with the finished samples.