 Batik Cards
Workshop on January 10-11, 2009, Rancho Bernardo.
On this beautiful Saturday morning 20 eager students, toting supplies, came together in anticipation of what was ahead. The room was set up with 3 large, square tables, comfortably seating 6 people at each.
Yvonne gave a warm welcome to everyone, provided a brief overview and introduced Carol, who stated her gratitude and thanks for the opportunity to teach – to Yvonne for organizing and planning the workshop and Doug Boyd for picking her up and taking her around San Diego.
Carol shared that she taught a book workshop in Wisconsin where she met a lady who subsequently taught her this batik process. She then shared a little of the history of Batik.
The first order of the day was a demonstration by Carol tearing a large full sheet of Arches Text Laid paper with a cork-backed ruler into smaller pieces, 8.5 x 6”, which we would be using for the exercises of the class. Everyone dispersed to their workplace to tear their paper. The goal was to end up with eighteen sheets to be used for colorful creations.
Each table had an electric frying pan in the middle to melt the cans of beeswax and paraffin while Carol went through the packet of notes She shared a little about the history of Batik and explained the use of the tjaunting tool – a fat pen-like handle with a spout like a teapot out of which the wax drips out.
 Next, Carol demonstrated the laying of wax on paper. It was more difficult than it appeared. We soon found that it demanded a good bit of effort to control the tool and the subsequent positioning of wax on the paper. Still eager to make fascinating designs, we continued after lunch. While we were at lunch, Carol and Yvonne mixed up nine colors of dyes, six of which we were squeezed into small containers.
Carol reviewed how the dyes were mixed, and the next demonstration moved to the third step: putting color into the spaces created by the wax outlining. Everyone was eager to begin painting our wax designs and this continued the rest of the afternoon.
Carol also reviewed basic color ideas that were included in our handout packet. Towards the end of the day, we watched Carol demonstrate the last step in the process: using an iron to melt the wax. Having completed these four steps we were then able to see the vibrancy of our art
 It had been a full day, and to make the most of the next day's techniques, we needed to finish at least 10 of the 18 cards at home on Saturday night.
Sunday, January 11 – Another beautiful day and we were all back for more. There was excitement in the air. We continued to paint, iron and work on our cards. It was fun to see the progress.
Day 2 started with including calligraphy with our art. Carol taught us a style of writing called “Silent Hand", which turned out be a Monoline Italic style of letter form. Carol gave us handouts, which included exemplar sheets with upper and lower case and numerals, and pre-ruled guideline sheets. These handouts in combination with overlay of tracing allowed us to practice the letterforms. The fifth step was to utilize these newly learned letterforms using gold or silver metallic pens. It was exciting to embellish and personalize our artwork.
Step six: Finally, Carol demonstrated how to bind the lining sheets into our beautiful cards. Her handout described 10 different ways using a packet of “goodies” that included threads; yarn, ribbon; brad, eyelets/grommets, etc.
The rest of the afternoon was spent working on finishing up as many cards as we could for a final presentation during the last half hour. Everyone gathered around one big table, made their individual presentations , and expressed how much they had enjoyed the workshop. Everyone left inspired to go home and create art. The different designs and colorful array of cards were absolutely spectacular, as these photos attest.
Thank you Yvonne for planning and working so hard to make the workshop such a success.
Write-up by Workshop attendee, Jenny Boyd
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