Short cut-Batik

My sincere attempt at making batik art work and that too with a natural dye.

I boiled 1/2 gallons on water with 4 table spoons of tea and let it steep for an hour.

Once it was boiled and all the goodness and color of the tea had been exteacted.

I washed the t-shirt with non-perfumed, sensitive detergent the day before and had it ready for this task.

Then i got to work on getting the pattern ready.

I cut up a regular card stock paper into random patterns after folding up the paper into three parts for symmetry purpose.

The next step was to place it on the t-shirt and get the wax from a tee light ready.

I light up my tee light and poured onto the pattern the wax.

I only needed 3 tee lights for this task, it was fairly easy to get through. The wax melted fast and the mess was minimal.

once the wax cooled down, I cracked up the wax a bit to ensure the dye would be able to get in between the wax through the crack.

The next step was to strain the tea mixture and immerse the t-shirt in this cold tea water (remember > hot will melt the wax). I let the t-shirt sit in this mixture over night.

The next day morning, I took it out and let it dry.

When I peeled off the wax, the t-shirt was still slightly damp.

I was pleasantly surprised with the results. The batik turned out lovely...the pattern could have been better (🤭).

I still likes what I saw and I let it sit in the Rit mixture and washed and dried it in the dryer.

Lastly, I did a bit of bead work to add some dazzle-dazzle to an otherwise plain looking t-shirt.

Next time, I might try to make a bigger batik design or something that looks more like a flower or a specific design.

Finished product

Before work started(things we needed)