D R A W T O M I N D

BATIK WORKSHOP WITH AINE ANDREWS

DRAW TO MIND 

Draw To Mind the national teachers conference was held in the Radisson blu this weekend in Little Island. I was lucky enough to attend a Batik workshop given by Aine Andrews. in the workshop Aine covered everything from stretching the canvas, mixing the dyes, applying the dyes and using the Tjantings.

Aine gave some really helpful tips to first starting out your batiks.

• Look at Art Nouveau as a resource to start you off as the style flows well together with the craft of Batik
• Colouring books and line drawings with no tone whatsoever are also a good resource to start off the idea of a design.
• 100% Cotton cloth or nothing

  

  Sample of Art Nouveau style.
  
  

Aine started the workshop off by telling us about the importance of the frames and stretching the cotton correctly around the batiks. All of this information was invaluable as once you have good frames for batik you can repeat the process over and over with many students. 

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A sample of one of the batiks Aine was working on during the workshop.

Aine gave a good tip that you should never use black dye straight away as it is very harsh and muddy. she recommended a dark blue to not make the colours as flat. 

Dyes stored in old milk containers, clearly labelled and easy to distribute. 

Tjanting use tutorial.