robin

Spring is here and the sun keeps drawing me outdoors.  The birds are singing and the warmth from the sun is wonderful.  I heard a Whistler the other day and I just love hearing their melodic sound again.

This little bugger keeps trying to knock itself out on my window.  I have not cleaned the windows for ages for this very reason.  The birds like to see their own reflection in the glass, and then they try to mate with that reflection.  This little Scarlet Robin has been knocking itself stupid for four days now.

Opened the window the other day to try and stop it.  It flew into the house,  I gently caught it and took it outside and let it go.   And thought this might scare it, but today it is back again.  This bird seems to have very few brains left after flying into the glass over and over and over again.

I hung some netting in front of the window and shifted the chair, this seems to be working so far.

Am hoping to get some more wax resist work completed this week, along with some more exhibition works.

bees wax

The batik fragments keep on coming, however there seems to be a problem with the wax removal in some of the fragments.  Particularly the silk.  The wax just wants to stay in the fabric.

 I am still experimenting with trying different soaps to try and see what works the best.  Because the fabric is natural vegetation dye this limits the use of detergents.  Plus, I would rather not use any formulas with sodium laurel sulphate or too many phosphates.  Sometimes the harsher detergents have the capability of changing the colours of the natural dyes, and I really would rather keep the colours as true as I can.

Anyway, this lot has had two dips in the hot pot, and after ironing them yesterday I found they still contained wax.  So I will heat the pot of water up again today and try again.

I know that you can iron the wax out with brown paper either side, but my electricity is limited here with solar power, and I really do not want to rely on this method to remove wax.

Once I work out the best soap I will let you know.  And we can continue our journey into batik.

the green sort of worked

Its nice to have some green colour in this latest batch of bees wax batik fragments.

I am very happy about this colour.  Its an earthy green.

This green is staying in the silk fragments well, but not staying in the cotton.

it only stays in the cotton if its dipped in iron water, and then it changes the colour all together.

Its really windy again today, a good inside day.

guess what

think I might have started more rain and playing children this morning.

yep, have been away a while, but might be back now.

they are out in the sun in the pots, solar dying in local native vegetation, I wonder if they will stay this colour.

have to wait and see.