Lisa Telling Kattenbraker
contemporary american batik
Welcome to the Works in Progress Page. Here I hope to give you a bit of a glimpse into what goes into creating the pieces. It also gives you a chance to see the directions the batiks take themselves.
Here We'll start at a true beginning.
Stretched fabric.
After lightly sketching out the general shapes I'd like to see, i decide which area I'd like to dye first.
I chose to cover the "buildings" in the center with wax and focus my first colors on the upper and lower portions of the piece.
Waxing onto the geometric shapes in the center of the piece with various wax temperatures as well as waxing different patterns into the shapes, will allow the first dye bath to penetrate some of the waxed areas and give some background pattern and depth to what will be the city.
Tedious work with a tjaniting tool.
Then we have the dye bath. High tech it is not. I've dyed the whole piece in a dark blue/green. It sits in the dye bath for a few hours, then i remove it, rinse it under cold water and hang it to dry.
My next step is to remove the wax by ironing it off between newspapers.
I'll repeat this entire process until I have all the colors I want dyed into the fabric.
Stretched fabric.
After lightly sketching out the general shapes I'd like to see, i decide which area I'd like to dye first.
I chose to cover the "buildings" in the center with wax and focus my first colors on the upper and lower portions of the piece.
Waxing onto the geometric shapes in the center of the piece with various wax temperatures as well as waxing different patterns into the shapes, will allow the first dye bath to penetrate some of the waxed areas and give some background pattern and depth to what will be the city.
Tedious work with a tjaniting tool.
Then we have the dye bath. High tech it is not. I've dyed the whole piece in a dark blue/green. It sits in the dye bath for a few hours, then i remove it, rinse it under cold water and hang it to dry.
My next step is to remove the wax by ironing it off between newspapers.
I'll repeat this entire process until I have all the colors I want dyed into the fabric.
Another City here.
This one has already had the initial pattern dyed into the fabric, ironed out, the fabric has been rinsed and prepped for the 2nd "start".
2nd image shows 2 additional waxings and dye-ings.
The 3rd image shows the piece about a month later. It has been dyed over and over, the wax removed, and I'm ready to do a final waxing and dye bath for the sky.
More that are in the works...
skybirds...
another wallpaperface...
and...i'm going to do what i swore i wouldn't ever again...RESIN FLOWERS
there's something calming about them, but, I don't think I'll be doing too many more, that's about all the calm i can handle.