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Christine Mariotti has devoted an entire studio to creating silk batik.
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Christine Mariotti combines her watercolor talents with a love of texture to create pattern and color on silk. She uses Javanese batik techniques, in which a special tool called a tjaunting was used to paint with wax. Traditional Javanese batik involved painting wax onto fabric and then dipping the fabric into dye. The process was repeated five or six times for each piece of fabric. Finally, the wax would be scraped away to leave intricate patterns. Mariotti uses a more contemporary method of batik: - She stretches the silk taut before beginning. (Beginners are advised to do this with stretcher bars and pushpins.)
- Next, Mariotti floods the silk with many different colors and allows them to run together like watercolors. She prefers to use foam brushes and a Chinese calligraphy brush.
- To keep all the colors wet, Mariotti must work quickly. After the painting is complete, she spinkles large granules of salt (similar to sea salt) onto the silk. The salt, which is alkaline, mixes with the acidic dyes to create a mild chemical reaction that results in patterns.
- Once the silk has dried, Mariotti simply brushes the salt from the silk.
- A contemporary chaunting, or bamboo brush, is used to add hot wax to preserve patterned areas.
- Mariotti paints a final coat of dye -- this time using darker colors over the existing ones.
- Then she removes the cloth from the frame and uses an iron to melt away the wax.( She recommends that an old craft iron be used and that the cloth be placed on paper, not an ironing board.) After placing paper over the batik to absorb the wax, Mariotti presses the iron (on a cotton setting) down.
- Finally, once almost all of the wax is removed, she removes the paper and uses a steam setting on the iron to remove any residual wax and soften the silk.
RESOURCES :
The Silk Painting Workshop: Painting, Marbling and Batik for Beginners
Model: 0715309331
Author: Jane Venables
Creative Batik
Model: 0855328924
Author: Rosi Robinson
Batik: For Artists and Quilters
Model: 0966638344
Author: Eloise Piper
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