Simple Soy Wax Batik for
Fabric
By Sonja Lee-Austin
Simple Soy Wax Batik for
Fabric
By Sonja Lee-Austin
© Copyright 2005
Here in
I started out experimenting with the traditional hot wax which is a mix of paraffin and beeswax. It was fun, but I didn’t enjoy burning my fingers and worrying that I would somehow spill hot wax on me or all over the table. I also wasn’t too fond of the fussiness of plugging in my hot water pot, making sure the cord was secure, waiting for the wax too cool down when I was done, and later attempting to clean out my supplies with boiling water.
The hot wax experience made me extremely appreciative of soy wax when I moved on to experiment with it. I found the soy wax sold in a crafts store as “Microwavable Soy Wax.” It took me a while to find it at the store since it didn’t occur to me to look in the candle making section right away. It was also hiding on the shelf closest to the floor. The “microwaveable” in the title got me excited. No hot water pots or electric frying pans needed!
After a bit of soy wax playtime, I was convinced that soy wax was my preferred batik technique, if I had to pick between hot wax and soy wax. The soy wax flakes melted in the microwave in about 2 minutes. Since soy wax heats up at a lower temperature than hot wax and it is clean burning, I didn’t feel that I had to be anxious about toxic fumes from getting my wax too hot. I began by painting the wax on my fabric with a paint brush. The wax stayed hot enough to paint with for a good 10 to 15 minutes. Once the wax began to thicken up too much, all I had to do was heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds and it was ready to use again.
The results of the soy wax batik fabrics were very similar to my fabrics created with hot wax. Actually the soy wax fabrics came out better because I was less concerned about the safety factors of learning the process. Anywhere I put wax, my fabric stayed white. I enjoyed creating layers of coloring and pattern. Apply one layer of soy wax patterning, paint the fabric with dye and when that is dry apply a second layer of wax and then second layer of dye using darker colors. To achieve a crackly patterning with soy wax that is so characteristic of batik fabrics, simply let the wax cool and wrinkle up the fabric to create cracks in the wax before painting on dyes.
From painting with soy, I moved on to stamping. Great patterns can be achieved with a simple sponge, found objects like an empty bobbin, or fancier rubber and carved stamps. Carved stamps and rubber stamps printed better if I pressed them into a thin synthetic sponge saturated with the melted soy wax and then pressed them onto my fabric. I could also get good imprints by using a sponge to dab wax onto the stamps. I got messier, less detailed prints from dipping the stamp in to hot soy wax and then pressing the stamp onto the fabric.
Once your fabric has been painted with dye and let to dry, removing the soy wax is similar to removing hot wax. Pick off any thick build ups of wax and then iron the fabric between sheets of blank newsprint or Kraft paper. You will need to keep changing the paper until the wax stops transferring onto the paper. The iron doesn’t have to be very hot so you can use the iron to remove the soy wax from silks and man-made fibers as well as cotton. The leftover papers can simply be thrown away or you can paint them for use in collage projects with the soy wax creating interesting resist patterns.
Try the same techniques on paper instead of fabric. If you keep your application of soy wax thin on the paper, you don’t even need to remove excess wax through the ironing process. Papers can be painted with watercolors, inks, or dyes.
For additional soy wax ideas, you may want to get in contact with Dorothy Bunny Bowen who has worked with soy wax on silk since 2002 and presented her paper: Soy Wax - An Alternative Resist Medium in Batik at the 2005 World Batik Conference.
