Batik adjustments are easy enough to make once the wax is removed and the batik is adhered to either canvas or acid free watercolor paper. The posts here show the final result first, along with the stages the batik went through after I'd ironed the wax out of the rice paper. This was one of the demos done for the Craftsummer Workshop which I taught a couple of weeks ago at Miami University.
This final painting, posted first, shows the many value changes as well as color and shape adjustments, compared to the original, shown next. The artists at Craftsummer only saw the batik as seen below, with the warmer overall temperature and paler border.
I'd planned for a cool temperature painting with a warm focal area, but that just didn't happen. Many adjustments had to be made to improve the painting, and I decided I'd rather sacrifice some of the batik effect, if I had to, in order to pull off a better painting.
The window in the upper left and the archway in the lower right really needed help, as did the strength of the shadows on the steps. I also wanted to add some cool teals and turquoises to the warm areas to help alleviate the heat of the painting.
The corners all needed to be darkened to help 'enclose' the painting, but even after doing that, I felt that it still lacked depth. Darkening the border considerably and minimizing the diamond shapes in it helped give the painting a better sense of depth - - - compare first pix with third one - shown here with lighter border.
My original photo, below, shows the scene that inspired this batik, but I used lots of artistic license to create a better composition. My goal was to capture the feelings I had while we were in this incredibly beautiful little village. I left Linda out of the painting and wondered later if the painting might have been more interesting if I had included her. Too late now, though.
A close up of the focal area shows details of the temperature changes - last pix posted here - as well as the stronger colors added for the flower areas. There were really a lot of adjustments on this batik, but not as many as on the one I'm working on now.
During one of the last days at Craftsummer, I was painting hot wax on this batik to completely cover the whole sheet of rice paper. Suddenly, I realized I had my other batik-in-progress UNDER this one. Where I'd just added the hot wax, it soaked into that underlying rice paper batik-in-progress.
A couple of the artists helped me carefully pull the two pieces of waxed rice paper apart, and now I must iron off all that 'mistake' wax on that bottom batik. YIKES! Once I re wax the shapes, I hope I can continue that batik and pull it off. We'll see.....
Batik is an intense process that's very time consuming, but well worth it. I won't give up on that batik-in-progress yet, since I already have a lot of time invested in it. If it doesn't turn out, I'll still have some beautiful pieces of colored rice paper to use for collage later.
Finished Painting at Top of Post ---
"COMO COUNTRY" Transparent Watercolor Batiked with Hot Wax on Kinwashi, with Sumi Ink, mounted on Wrapped Canvas 18 x 24"
Detail of focal area
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12 comments:
I am just in awe, Sandy. Truly in awe.
Sandy...amazed, as always.
I would like sometime, Sandy, to see the actual drawing ON the rice paper. This has a lot of details and you can't be "erasing" on a rice paper. So do you do the drawing first on some other paper and then "transfer" the drawing to the rice paper? And what do you use for the transfer?
You have to be precise here because if you draw a border and you plan to glue it to gallery wrapped canvas...it had better be in the exact place it needs to be!
Sandy, I so admire your tenacity in getting this to be perfect, in your eyes. At all stages of these I am in awe of the results and would be very happy to have created them as finished products. But, you persevere to keep improving them and I can see the difference. You truly have a vision of what is the perfect painting! Thank you for sharing your process with us.
wow! my favorite is the very bottom one! beautiful work.
Thanks, everyone. It's sure intense to do these but Ilove the surprises.
OMG! This is so over the top! I am shaking my head in awe! OMG! If ever I met you, I don't know whether I will kiss your head where your brain is or those indredible creative hands of yours! You are AWESOME! AWESOME! I am shaking my head from being too impressed, awed and just blown away by your diverse and incredible talent. OMG I hardly get intimidated but I think I am now.
Those are quite stunning, Sandy. I was this close to doing batik this week, but chickened out. Or got too anxious to paint without having new technique related obstacles be in the way. I can give a workshop in making up excuses. One of these days...
What a great workshop idea, Nava!!! Ya gotta go somewhere with that. Love your blog, too.
Wow, I love this. Batik is so appealing to me.
I don't know how you do it! Need to sign up for the workshop. Your's is of course outstanding, but what blows me away is every one of the pieces of your students is GREAT!! You never get that consistency of quality work in a w/c class. Better keep the pedal to the metal and start looking to do a DVD on this. Also, that first portrait of your grandson is a little masterpiece, can't paint any better than that.
So glad you liked the batik. I'm itching to finish the one I started a month ago, but have no time now to do it. Nick, a DVD would involve a microphone and camera, right? UGH! I can paint in front of hundreds of people, but those two things terrify me. Thanks for stopping by.
You really do beautiful work!
I am curious how you attach your rice paper to a canvas or watercolor sheet?
I so want to try to do this.
Thanks for your posting and help.
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