Batik, anyone?

[Hermes2020]

I swear I have a mental problem. My concrete bird feeder sculpture is taking up much of my spare time and attention. However, and I can't understand why, the idea of doing some batiks again keeps popping up in my mind. It's probably been about 30 years since I dyed cloth, when I was using paraffin wax and beeswax in different ratios. I know a modern variant is to use soy wax, so I was wondering whether anyone here has done any batiks recently using soy wax. I would appreciate some tips and comments. I guess the Fiber Arts and Fashion forum is the most appropriate one to start this conversation?

 

[Artyczar]

Either here or Mixed Media. I have never used soy wax, or beeswax either, but I know that artists do.

 

[JStarr]

I knew I'd seen something about this not too long ago. One of my nieces is a fabric artist, mostly loom weaves, but every once in awhile she goes elsewhere with her work. She did some batik-y tie-dye stuff, and then bemoaned the result due to the soy wax not being as water proof as regular batik wax (petroleum and bees waxes mix). She posted something by a batik artist, and I am pretty certain it was this: http://www.db-bowen.com/soywax/soywax.htm

Basically, the issue is: "Soy wax is water soluble, therefore it does not behave as well in an immersion bath as batik wax does, however,
the end results can sometimes achieve interesting partial resists."

May work better on silk, though, because it comes out of the cloth more easily and the chemicals needed to remove batik wax from silk are getting difficult to find.

 

[Hermes2020]

I knew I'd seen something about this not too long ago. One of my nieces is a fabric artist, mostly loom weaves, but every once in awhile she goes elsewhere with her work. She did some batik-y tie-dye stuff, and then bemoaned the result due to the soy wax not being as water proof as regular batik wax (petroleum and bees waxes mix). She posted something by a batik artist, and I am pretty certain it was this: http://www.db-bowen.com/soywax/soywax.htm

Basically, the issue is: "Soy wax is water soluble, therefore it does not behave as well in an immersion bath as batik wax does, however,
the end results can sometimes achieve interesting partial resists."

May work better on silk, though, because it comes out of the cloth more easily and the chemicals needed to remove batik wax from silk are getting difficult to find.

Thanks for your interesting reply. It raises some interesting questions, which means I am going to be forced to do some tests. Who am I kidding? I love doing research. Perhaps soy wax will be OK for my purposes, because I use vat dyes that work in water at room temperature.