Monday, July 20, 2009

July's Lesson: Blue Glue Batik

This month's kit is a lesson on "batiking" with using Elmer's blue glue as a resist. The kit contains fabric, glue, fabric paint, and brushes. You may use the glue to draw, doodle, stamp or paint on the fabric. When the glue dries it will resist any paint that is brushed onto the fabric. In Sue's mountain scene, the glue is used to outline the mountains and to create the fence. Once the glue has dried, Sue painted the sky, the mountain, and the foreground with fabric paint. When the glue is rinsed out, it leaves the white, unpainted lines. In this piece, the fence then was colored with watercolor pencils. Machine quilting added the finishing details.

Create a whole cloth picture by outlining shapes with the tip of the bottle.

When the glue has dried, color each section with fabric paint. Lightly spritz the fabric in order to allow the paint to flow into each section. Allow the paint to dry thoroughly and then iron it with a protected iron in order to set the paint. Soak and rinse your piece to wash out the glue. Dry and press.
Doodle with the glue on a piece of white fabric. When the glue has dried, apply a wash of paint over the entire piece, allowing multiple colors to bleed together.


Your fabric can be painted or dyed before you begin the batik process. In the example below, by stamping with the glue and then painting a second color over the entire piece, the initial color will become visible when the glue is rinsed out.

In this last example, multiple layers of glue and paint have been applied to the fabric. After brushing glue onto the fabric and painting, the process can be repeated several times once the first layer has dried and been washed out.


You have now created pieces that may be incorported into a larger piece or cut into shapes for piecing or applique.