Batik

Hey everyone!

I totally meant to post this earlier as I did this a while ago, but I learned how to do batik on rice paper earlier with Nikki. I was away on a college visit recently, so forgive me if this seems a little messy; I'm still a tiny bit exhuasted from the trip, but I'm ready to get back at it.

I have a very difficult time describing the process, but I will do as best as I can to explain it. It isn't too complicated, however it can be a little messy and it also depends on what the artist hopes to achieve from it. What we first did was get some sort of simple picture or sketch to be traced with a black marker onto the rice paper. Simplicity mattered in this case because the process would get extra messy if the design was complicated. At this stage, you could also add certain details like a border or a signature, which is what I did. I then painted wax over all the places where I had drawn something over the wax paper, so I had wax traced over my drawing, the border and my signature. I also spattered the wax all over the paper to give it a cool affect, but this is also not necessary. After finishing with the wax, I water-colored the paper to suit the drawing and when I was finished, I used a hair dryer to dry up the whole paper. After this, I painted a few layers of wax (Nikki explained that more wax was better) over the entire paper. When finished with the wax, the paper had to be placed somewhere cold, so I left it in the fridge for a while so that the wax would solidify. After a few minutes, I took the paper out and crumpled it up a few times (and this gets really messy, as the wax falls off of the paper). Since the paper was still covered in wax, we sort of had to iron the wax off by placing the paper between newspapers and ironing it that way, as the newspapers pick up excess wax. When all of the wax is completely removed, the batik is finished. Below is my finished product (the process was really messy, so I didn't get a chance to take many pictures while I was making this).

Nikki was kind enough to get a frame for it, so I'm very grateful for that. Doing batik on paper is very different from doing it on fabric, and so I have been looking into this since I was planning on trying this out for a scarf. However, there is the possibility that this might be too complicated for this project, so I have been looking into other simple DIY projects to do instead. I have also been working on the photograph pattern as well and am waiting to get some advice from another expert that I know. I will probably be posting again soon, so thank you for reading!

Larissa :)

Marbling: I Figured It Out

Hello once again

I'm here to update on my second tryout with marbling. To my satisfaction (and also a little to my annoyance), this second time around was much more successful! I tried a few different methods and made some basic designs (I'm not planning on getting too complicated) on some pieces of construction paper and scrap pieces of fabric (torn from a t-shirt). Below are afew of my samples, the last one being some fabric scraps.

This time ended up being much more successful, and I honestly don't know how, but I'm grateful for it. There's some special techniques that one can do to get the paints in a specific, reproducible pattern, but I prefer to just swirl them around a little. I like how no one pattern looks alike, and Nikki agrees. Conveniently, I've found that the red and blue paints work best on fabric, so I will start a massive fabric project to create a simple hobo bag. Now that I've mastered using the complicated marbling paints, I'm pretty confident with them and I will soon report on my recent batik experiment with Nikki.

Larissa :)

Latest CAbi Show: My Realization

Hi everyone!

I have lots to update on, but I've been really bad about posting all of my new information on this blog. First, I'll start with my discovery at the latest CAbi show from earlier this week (and I will be sure to update on my success with marbling very soon!).

This show was pretty typical; Kris did her presentation, we recommended styling ideas, women would try on clothes and complain about their bodies (in regards to their heights, etc.), I would help the women to try on the clothes and try to keep things organized on the rack. As I was helping Kris set up the show and put the clothes on the rack, I realized that after all the time that I've been working with her, I actually still don't know exactly how the clothes are supposed to be organized. Within this "Spring 2015 Collection," the clothing is organized into different sections, all of which have titles. Not only that, but each of the individual pieces have names, and while this is pretty cool, it's really hard to keep up with. Each article also has a "control number" that is used when a consumer wishes to buy a piece, and while this isn't necessary to memorize, it would definitely be helpful to do so. It's strange how even some of the costumers will know the name of an item and I will be clueless as to what they are talking about because there are so many names to keep up with.

While I was reflecting on the difficulties that I have with keeping up with all of the information and on the times that I struggle with the clothing oranization, I realized that this is actually something very common in the manufacturing industry. Having to deal with a bunch of tedious information is not something specific to CAbi; every clothing industry deals with this, especially those that utilize mass production techniques. All of this can make working in the fashion industry more difficult since each company will have certain things done or organized in a specific way, leaving very little room for freedom. With this realization, it also makes a good point for why one may reconsider the "handmade/DIY industry." By self production of goods or materials, one can have more freedom in what they wish wish to produce and work with, making the process much more stress free. Self creation of products also allows for more individuality instead of creating things based on the rules of a system that one would have to go by otherwise if dealing with a manufactured industry. All of this just provides more support for why it's important to maintain the ability, willingness and value to self create art.

Now that I've finished with that, I will soon update on my latest marbling tryout and I'll continue to go over the CAbi catalogue to keep all of my information organized. I'll also be working with Nikki again this week to try out batik on rice paper, and hopefully I can show some of her work as well.

Larissa :)