Batik and Pottery fun - part II

Another week flies by and I've spent over 6 hours of it at the art centre. Fun, but tiring too in this heat! I fretted most of Tuesday about what I should paint, but eventually came up with an ocean theme with lots of fish, coral, shells etc. An hour before the class I decided it was way too complicated, so quickly drew up another much simplified version and decided to save the first design for when I am a little more confident with the process! Just as well, as the route to producing Wednesday's batik was rocky enough! That tjanting is a devil to control - yes, I know, a bad workman blames his tools and all that, but hey, I did discover that perhaps one of the reasons I'm having so much difficulty controlling that fiendish tool is because the spout was bent over too much .... so the wax has been flowing out at an extra fast rate of knots and I've found it quite frustrating that I am unable to get my hand close enough to the fabric to get any real control. Been using it like that for two lessons and now they tell me!! Fingers crossed then that my next attempts will be an improvement! The pic above shows my painting drying before the second application of wax and more painting. By that stage I was wondering if it wouldn't have been better to have left well alone as it looked even more like something a child of 6 could produce! No photos of it now, but if it is not a total disaster, all will be revealed next week!



Here is last week's painting hanging out to dry after the process of fixing the dye by soaking the fabric in a water and sodium silicate solution, rinsing in cold water and then adding the fabric to very hot water with soda ash to loosen the wax. Finally another rinse out and it's done. Phew, creating batik is not for the faint-hearted, that's for sure!





Here are the experts at work again. That's better- this is how it should be done!



This week's pottery class saw us making yet more pinch pots (got to get the basics right!) and then having a first 'go' at throwing on the wheel. That's Mr Lam in the pic above showing us how it should be done! Then it was my turn, which was lots of fun but I have new found respect for all you potters out there! Centering the clay is really difficult, never mind controlling it as you try to form something.




LOL !!! I ended up with this odd 'vessel' which went straight back into the rejects bag for recyling!! Ah well, only another 20 years of practice then!!