Auction Commission: The Reveal (with a lesson)

It's been a long time since I have blogged and I am long over due. Sometimes life puts up obstacles and sometimes they are just pleasant distractions that lead you astray.

While visiting my twin sister in Colorado Springs, my husband and I finished four stained glass windows for our front door. We have spent three weekends stripping and sanding the paint off the door, restaining, and then polyurethaning it. Finally last weekend, we put in the glass... and voila. C'est magnifique.

However, I am most incredibly pleased with the result of the Tipperary batik I also finished while in Colorado. I have delayed in composing my final "Auction Commission" post until it was in the hands of its new owner. Now that it is... the REVEAL!

The batik was almost perfect after I removed the wax from the final dye bath. There were still a few little details I felt I needed to touch up.

I wasn't comfortable with the way the hair blended from the lighter part of the body into the darker area. The transition was too sudden. I used a paintbrush and hand-feathered bleach, waited about an hour, and washed it out in a bath of white vinegar and water. Although bleach may discontinue removing any more color, it still acts on the fibers of the fabric, weakening it more and more over time.

The purple in the body still did not match the vibrancy of the purple in the face. I applied a wash of purple dye over the areas where I wanted greater concentration of color. I then placed plastic wrap on either side of the batik and let it remain that way for 24 hours. Like radioactive material, dyes' reaction with fiber has a half life. It is about half as effective about 3 hours after you mix the dye with the Soda Ash thickener solution. By wrapping it in plastic wrap, you further delay its drying time so that it maximizes the half life potential.

Everyone has someone in their life who inspires them, who changes the way you feel about yourself, who makes a difference in who you become. For me, it was my high school art teacher, George Benedict, who sadly passed away last year from cancer. George taught me how to see... how light bends itself... that everything is formed of geometric shapes... and the most important lesson of all, how to convey power and emotion in the eyes.

Tipperary's eyes were nearly perfect. The color, The transitions. The only final touch I needed was to use a daub of white paint to enhance the highlights of (and the life in) his eyes. As the batik's new owner wrote me, "The package arrived yesterday. When I got home it was waiting. I opened it and it is beautiful! The colors are really vivid! I was amazed. I am so happy with it. I love the eyes (and everything else), but the eyes just grab attention when I look at it."

I want to thank everyone for their kind comments on this blog and on my Facebook page. We all have doubts sometimes, and I am by no means immune. I really appreciate your encouragement and support. :)

Auction Commission: Happy Accidents

I always tell those I teach that there are no Mistakes in batik, just Happy Accidents. Otherwise you will just go insane with all the imperfections. It is not a perfect medium. Batik has taught me to apply this mantra to other things I do, such as silkscreening shirts.

Every October, a cavalcade of friends travel to Dewey Beach, Delaware for the annual Greyhound gathering. We all stay in a house mere blocks from the ocean, usually more dogs than people crowding the couches. I always bring a craft project for my housemates, and one year I made silkscreens for shirts, and have every year since.

At some point I started designing themed images... The Dewey Bunch (Brady Bunch), the Bad News Hounds, and last year, MASH.

As we settled down to screen our shirts, with the wine flowing freely, eventually somebody drops a blob of paint on their shirt. My mantra has taught me to make something of that blob. They became bullet holes and hand grenades. Then my friends starting putting blobs on their shirts on purpose! Truely it became a Happy Accident!

Anyways, I have found that batiking a black dog is extremely difficult. Black cannot be... well, just black. You have to infuse color into black in order to develop tone and shape, so I chose purple. However, I didn't realize how purple my purple was and my layers of black on top of it are now tinged with the color. This can go two ways; it will wash out a bit in my final boil, or it will become yet another Happy Accident.

I have also never used hatching in a batik before. Now that I have been using my Ukranian Easter egg tjanting tool, I can get those fine lines that hatching requires. But never having done this before has made me uncertain and question my sanity. Then I remember my mantra, and move on.

I am getting to the final phase of the batik, the final dye bath. There is so much wax on it now that the image looks extremely dark. Removing the wax after the bath will be like opening a present on Christmas. Will it be an iPad... or socks?! You can never count on what you will get, but you can always make something of it. Again and forever my mantra... Happy Accidents!

Auction Commision: Rant and Rave

I have been visiting my twin sister, Lauren, in Colorado Springs for almost a month, and I am due to return home to Syracuse in a mere few days. While here, I have been taught how to do stained glass, taught and addicted my sister to batik, and have experienced the most horrific wildfires Colorado has ever experienced.

The first photo shows the ridgeline fire that jumped to the next peak and roared down the mountain, 3 miles in only 30 minutes. Residents scrambled to evacuate, nearly 350 homes were lost, and several lives. It gladdens and saddens me that through this disaster, people took in families and pets and firefighters worked tirelessly, but also evacuated homes were looted and opportunists ran donation scams.

Political, but... sometimes it upsets me that while here, when purchasing an item, I am asked if I am military, who often get big discounts. Yes, these are individuals who put their lives on the line to protect our security, but what about other heroes. What about these fire fighters... the cops... the people who volunteer... teachers... to name just a few. There are so many heroes. Don't they deserve the same? Why do we distinguish one as more deserving than another. Just a thought. End of my rant and onto my rave!

Being forced to stay indoors because of the abundant smoke, I accomplished much on all my projects.

As usual, the Tipperary batik went through an "Ugly" phase and I had to rethink my intentions. Although I did many color studies that finally produced the colors I wanted, the brown dye bath seemed to muddy these colors.

As per my usual artistic method, I had an epiphany in the middle of the night. For me, art is instinct. I decided that I needed to wax out the background with a "hatching" effect to create texture and dimension to the background while still staying relatively neutral so as not to compete with the batik's subject.

I then applied a wash of a brown-blue mix to the background, with the waxed-out brown resisting. The blue tint, theoretically, will fade back from Tipperary, who will be completed with a black dye bath. The image shows the batik while it is wet and will not reveal its color until it dries.

After my efforts have dried, I will again wax out the background so that it will not take on the color of the final dye bath. I don't think I have ever thought and worked so hard on a background before, specifically to make the subject shine. A new learning experience for me... and exactly what this blog is about!! Making mistakes... and new discoveries. A journey in learning.

The image to the right shows the batik held up to a light so you can get an idea of what the colors and pattern will more closely look like. The blotchiness is pools of dye settling on the wax and will be more brilliant when removed. I am excited to start working on Tipperary.

I am also excited about the stain glass windows my husband, Luke, and I have been working on to fit into the four panels on our front door. We have a lovely Tudor style home that has always cried for stained glass, but could never really afford it. Luke finished the two outside panels. The inside panels are almost done, one need patina and the other is ready to start the soldering process. I can't wait to get these home and installed.

Auction Commission: No Turning Back

A little something about who I am as an artist and what has affected my attitudes about my art.

When I was 10 years old, my father had me apprenticed to a Master glassblower, William Burke, who (allegedly) taught renown glass artist Milon Townsend of New York City. I learned how to manipulate glass using the torch technique, with solid Pyrex rods and hollow tubing. By the age of 12, I had my first craft show in a cow field under a tent. My dad built me a demonstration table out of old pallets from a neighboring field. By the age of 14, I was sick and tired of mass production. I just wanted to be an artist. Only to create. Not to produce, and reproduce.

Because of that, I have only created artwork to please myself. If I love it, I keep it. If I hate it, nobody will ever see it. If I like it, I tend to give it away. I have never really sold anything since my glassblowing days. Not that I haven't had offers, but the price was never high enough to relinquish.

The Tipperary batik is, technically, my first "commission." Not that I am being paid, mind you, but rather I am doing it for someone other than myself, and very proudly for the benefit of Global Sighthound Rescue. It's hard. If I don't like it, I just can't throw it into the pile of my rejects, and, if I love it, I DO have to let it go. Keep in mind, I only taught myself to batik almost 2 years ago, and I have so much more yet to learn.

This batik will be the first one in which I have done the background first, and the first batik in which I will be doing a double dye bath. The problem with doing the background first is that you have to keep in mind that the background should not overwhelm the foreground. And yet I challenged myself by choosing to draw a busy blanket upon which to put the subject, a black greyhound, surrounded by detailed and colorful chocolate wrappers. The batik is at risk of losing a strong focus on its subject, with the busyness and color of the background acting as major distractors.

Whomever determined that problem solving occurs during R.E.M. sleep is a genius! I find myself waking during the early hours in the morning with Eureka! moments on how to approach my batik conundrums.

The dark subject and the colorful chocolate wrappers means I have to have a relatively neutral background. But I don't have to sacrifice the retro pattern of the blanket. I have to de-emphasize it. One of the main elements of my batiks is the "comic-bookish" dark outlines. For the background, I am going to forgo that element.

This is also the first time that I actually have to have a recipe for exact colors. That means I have to do intensive color studies while noting down the formula in order to recreate the color on a larger scale. To actually measure my dye concentrations, I had to create a miniscule measuring device. I used Sculpey and a golf tee to create it. Again, LOVE those Eureka! moments!

I started with a soft wash on the blanket to eliminate any distracting white highlights. I free-painted (painted with no wax resist) the retro pattern with my chosen color palette. Next, I waxed out everything that will will NOT be the warm, mid-tone brown of the blanket that will be accomplished using the first of two dye baths.

Tomorrow will reveal the results of my choices. There is no turning back now!!

Currently, I am visiting my twin sister in Colorado for a month. (I am from New York state) She has graciously taken time off from work to teach me stained glass, and for me to teach her batik. I sketched the following image for her to start with, and tomorrow, we begin batik in earnest!

**SIGH** Sadly, I love this sketch too!!

Auction Commission: Introducing Tipperary

In April of 2012, Global Sighthound Rescue ran an artist auction offering the services of seven artists to create a "portrait" of each winner's pet. The mediums used by each artist varied greatly: linocut print, ceramic sculpture, paper mache, soft sculpture, graphite portrait, painted ceramic pottery, and myself... batik.

The winner of my auction is Susan who has owned many dogs, from many different breeds, as well as cats. Obviously a woman with a lot of love in her heart to share with so many. The process of choosing WHICH pet to feature in the batik caused Susan much uncertainty.

Initially, Susan told me she had a greyhound who is a trancer. Trancing... what the heck is that!! To my surprise, some greys seem to go into a trance when they brush their back against low hanging branches or bushes. They may actually stand motionless for several minutes with their eyes glazed over as they seem to be feeling the touch of the branches.

In reference to this behavior, Susan asked me if I could do a sketch of her three greyhounds peering out of a liliac bush. I began with a simple sketch and found, though I loved the idea of using brilliant colors, that the dog's beautiful face was getting lost in the busyness of the liliacs. To add two more greyhounds to this didn't seem like an option.

After looking through many pictures, we finally agreed that Tipperary would be the subject of the batik. Susan comments about her heart dog, "Much as I love the others, he (Tipperary) was and always will be Mommy's favorite."

To create the perfect composition that shows the pet's personality in addition to his visage, I had to find out more about who Tipperary was.

Tipperary was Susan's first greyhound
whom passed away in 2005 at age 11.

Tipperary was a lovely black male greyhound with gorgeous, engaging eyes. Susan wrote me "He was not a needy or demanding dog, but he always made it clear that I was very important to him. He watched me wherever I went, but did not have to follow me everywhere. It's probably why I liked his eyes so much." THAT statement gave me my focus!

Despite the fact that Tipperary was afraid of thunderstorms, fireworks, balloons, and black plastic bags, he was better known for being a precocious scamp.

Susan wrote, "He did seem to have a taste for the written word. He ate many newspapers and books through the years. He also was a manic chocoholic. When we visited my parents, he found and ate selectively from her chocolate stash in the bedroom. She learned to hide her chocolate better whenever he came to visit." THOSE statements gave me my composition.

Since then, I have found the reference materials I need to convey my idea, sketched out an image (that I love and whose subsequent batik I will sadly not be able to keep), done a color study, transferred the image onto the fabric ( I choose a lovely French cotton with Snails embedded in it), and I am now at the beginning stages of waxing.

Tipperary has such fine white lines in his black face that I decided to try using my Ukranian Easter Egg tjanting tool, which I have never used before in a batik (see white areas in the closeup image around the eye). It was working fabuously until I realized that these lines would have to be redone during each subsequent wax removal and reapplication. It was best if I had started with the background.

Traditionally in my work process, I always underplan and wait to see how the subject of the batik turns out before I decide what kind of background "speaks" to me and what colors are appropriate. Now I am forced to work in reverse. I decided that a retro pattern seemed to suit the theme of this batik, Tipperary's avid chocoholicism.

Given many of these factors, I have entitled this batik "Chocolate, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails... That's what Tipperary is Made Of"

Lesson 4: Understanding Chemicals

The chemicals of batik have been the hardest to understand, and for the painterly batiks that my group are doing, I have had to make a great many errors to discover perfect solutions to uncommon situations. If there is any lesson you should read about, this is the most important one.

The most important chemical in the batik process is soda ash, a fixative that bonds the dye to the fiber. Dye must be 'fixed' (made permanent) with Soda Ash on cotton and other cellulose fibers. It's a mild alkali that enables the reaction between the dye and the cellulose fibers at lower temperatures, causing them to “become one.” How much you use is normally a function of the amount of water, not the amount of fabric or dye.

I have ready many books on batik, and every one of them has instructed presoaking your fabric in a mixture of soda ash and water and then letting it dry completely dry before sketching your image. When the dye is painted on, it reacts with the Soda Ash in the fabric.
 
This technique is fine if you are creating simple "blocky" images or stamps of traditional batik that don't require intensive painting, but I have found that the more detailed painting I do leaves a stain caused by diffusion. The wet areas of dye seem to push the sodium of the soda ash to the border and leave and unsightly stain. Stay tuned and you will learn a very important simple trick.

BASE SOLUTION: Cold Batch Chemical Water

Hand painting on fabric requires a thickened solution that slows bleeding, allowing you greater control of color placement and blending. First, you need to create the base solution for the other chemicals that will be added later. Cold batch chemical water is the base for mixing dyes for the purpose of handpainting and can be stored in a refrigerator for up to a month. It basically contains water and Urea. Urea extends the drying time of the fabric so that the dye has time to bond with the fibers, generally 6 hours for pastels or silk OR 12-24 hours for deeper shades and brighter colors

Cold Batch Chemical Water Recipe:

Mix together ¾ cup Urea (dissolve in a little hot water if necessary) with 1 quart water. (NOTE: In this image, I am only making a quarter batch because that is all I need during my month long sojourn with my twin sister in Colorado.)

THICKENING SOLUTION: Sodium Alginate

Before handpainting, the chemical water needs to be thickened. The thicker the solution, the less it will bleed along the fabric fibers, allowing you to control the flow and actually paint or print onto the fabric.

Thickener is generally made from sodium alginate, which is cheaper but requires mixing in a blender, some time to thicken, and has a yellowish cast that may skew color perception slightly (from what you see when wet to what you see when dry). I used to buy a pre-made clear mixture called Superclear from Dharma Trading Company, but supply shortages on alge has made this difficult to get in the United States. If this is a concern, you can buy a higher grade food alginate used in molecular gastronomy at Amazon.

Sodium Alginate Recipe:

In a blender, combine 1 cup chemical water and 2 Tablespoons sodium alginate powder. Mix at low speed for 10 minutes. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight until thickened. Store in the refrigerator. If you want a thicker solution (especially for screen printing), add more sodium alginate.

SODA ASH: ***The BIG Secret***

After my initial failure with staining caused by diffusion, I decided to try adding in a little bit of soda ash when I mixed the dyes and thickened solution together. That was a failure. It was difficult to control the ratio of liquid to soda ash to get the correct reaction with the fiber.

Sadly, I do my best thinking when I am asleep (and might benefit from sleeping a bit more often). In a moment of inspiration, I jumped out of bed in a EUREKA moment. The soda ash reacts with the dyes!!!! The solution is to add the soda ash to the thickened solution where it remains inactive at the proper concentration until the dye is combined with it.

Soda Ash Recipe:

Roughly ½ teaspoon soda ash per ½ cup of thickened chemical water is needed. If you don't use enough, the dye won't yield full strength.

When mixed with the dyes, the soda ash fixer activates and has a limited shelf life of 3-5 hours before it becomes half as effective. Blacks exhaust even faster. Only small quantities of dye solutions are needed for painting.

Add a squirt of thickened chemical water (or however much you will need for your image) into a mixing cup. Dip the tip of a paintbrush into the powdered dye and mix a small quantity of it into the thickened chemical water. Test out the color on a scrap piece of cloth or paper towel. Try to go a shade or two darker than you want for your finished result. Use slightly more for blacks, bright reds, and bright blues. Smaller dye to water ratio yields pastel hues.

MISCELLANEOUS CHEMICALS:
Calsolene oil is used in the final deep water dye bath to break the surface tension of the water and allow the dye to dissolve better.

Synthrapol is a wetting agent that helps wool fibers to open up to absorb water for the acid dye process. However, for cold water batik Synthrapol is used as a soap to encapsulate loose dye particles and prevent accidental dye spots when washing your batik before boiling the wax out.

The next lesson I will present will be about different techniques in painting with thickened dyes.

Through the Stages 5: Finished at Last!

Well, this particular batik went through many more "Ugly" stages than I anticipated, but it is finished at last. I am not thrilled by my results, not enough to justify the enormous expense of framing it just so I can validate my reasons for keeping it. After all, everything looks better framed.

I think it is about time that I consider an online store or maybe selling it on Etsy. I have maybe six or seven batiks that I am willing to sell for the right price.

It is always hard to let my artwork go. If I love it, I will not part with it. If I hate it, I certainly don't want anyone else to see it. If I am ambivalent about it, I cannot charge anyone for it, so I give it away. If I want to make my art a "business", I need to toughen up about my insecurities.

Years ago I bought a lovely oil painting of Chinese war horse from an artist online. Weeks later she blogged that she regretted selling that painting, but every day I cherish that same painting.

This experience teaches me that I need to adjust my perspectives on my art. It may sound obnoxious to say that I am being selfish about hiding my artwork away when others can appreciate it and love it and value it so much more. It is time for me to grow up and get "out there."

My next "Through the Stages" blog will be about the winner of the Global Sighthound Rescue Artist Portrait Auction's winner and the process of the personalized batik as it goes through its stages.