Week 2 Batik

Batik was a blast this week - where were you Sophia?

We did a two color process this week. First we dyed 100% cotton cloth yellow and let it dry. Then in class we created a "doodle" design with the wax and our tjanting tools.






We had some art books to work from for ideas as well as drafting tools. We put the waxed cloth in the refrigerator to cool off and then wadded it to crack the wax. When we applied the dark dye to the fabric it seeped through the cracks in the wax - very cool effect.


Instead of washing the wax out this week we ironed it out. It's a different finish, rather stiff, but with a fuller body finish. The left over wax in the fabric gives it more of a sheen.

I've included some pics of the finished pieces from class. IT WAS FASCINATING and FUN!

Thank you Sylvia for a great class. It's always
fun to experiment and especially to doodle. I didn't realize how relaxing making a doodle could be.

I suppose it's on equal footing with daydreaming!

I'll see all the batik artists in class next week!

Art In The Park Tomorrow!

Kettle falls hosts the ART In The Park tomorrow - Saturday, June 27 from 10 am - 6 pm. There will be art, crafts, entertainment and fun. The belly dancing troupe will be performing in the Happy Dell Park at 2 p.m.

Colville Arts Foundation will be on hand to do face painting for those who are adventurous at heart. Artist, Shelly Kalua Graham, will be volunteering her time to promote the arts and provide some fun for kids with butterflies, monsters and even dolphins.

Summer Arts

This summers art program is beginning to look like the community education program we used to have in Colville. Students pay a $27 membership fee and then attend a lesson for $2/lesson.

Today, for example, hula students learned the 13 letters of the Hawaiian alphabet and the pronunciation of the letters. They also learned to sing the first verse of Pearly Shells in the Hawaiian language. Three hula steps, the kahalo, ka'o and ami were practiced until legs were burning and everyone was breathing hard. Adding the hand interpretation to the steps and words was the final mind challenging piece.

Hula meets Thursday mornings in the CJH Annex building at 10:30 through August 13.

Later in the afternoon, from 3:30-5:30 students worked in Acrylic paints to express their ideas regarding how they feel about paint.

Member Art Supply Store!

The Colville Arts Foundation has long wanted to supply foundation members with more affordable, quality art supplies. We finally have our relationships in place and have placed our first order for supplies.

We believe this idea of buying wholesale and passing most of the savings on to our members is a win-win relationship. CAF is provided with an ongoing fundraiser and members get the supplies they need at a "membership" price.

What is the cost of membership? $35 per year.

Most of our member art supplies will be through orders. Members can shop on the following site: http://www.c2f.com/
The prices members see are retail. They simply write down the stock number and email us a request and we get a price back to them. Members pay for their items then wait for member orders to reach $100 wholesale at which time the order is sent in.

On the calendar you can figure the last week of each month is when we will send in orders. The turn around time is about 4-5 business days. Our first order came promptly.

For our first order we were able to secure some fun items that will make great gifts. The mini easel acrylic set is retail $19.99 but members pay only $11. This little easel set is perfect for tabletop work and I'm excited to start using mine.

The item we have on special is a 3 pack of 10"x20" Canvas Board. This retails for $13.50 but the member special price is $4 during June and July until they are gone. We have a very limited number of these boards but if you would like one stop by soon before the summer art studio students snap them up!

Batik Art Introduction

Batik in Colville?!

Sure, why not. Our instructor, Sylvia, learned about batik on a trip to Malaysia. She is a wonderful teacher and has a lot to share with budding batik artists.

Batik is an involved process but the outcome can be stunningly beautiful.

This introductory project requires 100% cotton fabric.

After treating the fabric in a mixture of water PH Up we let the fabric dry.

Step 1: Choose a picture to trace onto the 12"x12" fabric.

This student chose a coloring book image of dolphins downloaded from the web to trace. The student was very happy with the image and it proved to be just about right for a 10 year old.

Step 2: Stretch the fabric onto a frame. We used little hooks on rubber bands but for younger students prefer thumb tacks straight into the wood.



Step 3: Use a tjanting tool with melted batik wax to apply wax to the traced picture lines. The wax must soak through so you can see it on both sides of the fabric. If it doesn't soak through flip the fabric over and apply the wax to the back of the picture.



The trick here is to keep the wax from making blobs on the fabric. The magic is in the wax, it's makeup and the temperature. We used some batik wax the instructor brought from Malaysia but when it runs out we will have to test other wax options. This wax has some resin in it to make it yellow and it crackles nicely when dry.

Step 4: Applying the dye



With cotton fabric it helps to moisten the fabric before applying the dye with a paintbrush. It runs better when the fabric is moist and looks more like a water color painting.

Dye is prepared using urea. This humectant helps the dye fuse with the fabric. Without using it our finished product is washed out.


The first example above is washed out while the one next to it is vibrant.

For a complete set of instructions - just ASK!
The process is involved and requires chemical treatments.

Below are some pictures of this week's batik artists.





Stop in at 218 N Oak Street on Tuesday evenings at 5:45 p.m. to see what's going on with our summer art studio and try your hand at batik art.

Food Bank Bag Panels

Artists and students who attended the Open House to sign up for summer class participated in a community art project benefiting people who utilize the Food Bank.

Eco-friendly shopping bags will be constructed from old blue jeans and the art panels will be sewed to the bags. In the past blue jean shopping bags have been popular with Food Bank patrons.

There are still some panels left to decorate if you would like to participate! Below are some examples of the art panels created during the open house.

Summer Classes

Friday, June 12, local artists and teaching artists participated in an open house to promote summer art classes and participate in a community art project. The art project will benefit visitors of the Colville Food Bank. Open house participants created their own stamp or used one of the stamps provided. The stamps were compressed in acrylic paint and applied to the fabric panels. Artists non only designed their own stamps they finger painted!

Monday, June 15, more students showed up at the open house on Oak street to sign up for summer art classes which start June 22.

Some of the classes: Hula, drawing, acrylic painting, batik, collage and figurative art in Colville. Water color classes are held in Kettle Falls.

It's going to be a fun summer!!!

What's in a name?

Colville Arts Foundation board members met last week and one of the topics that arose was the name of the foundation. Including "Colville" in the name seems to exclude other towns and especially counties outside of Stevens County.

Because the board is interested in reaching not only Stevens county artists but those living in Ferry and Pend Orielle counties as well, it does seem to make sense to consider a more inclusive name.

Potential Names might be, North Country Arts Foundation, Upper Columbia Arts Foundation and NE WA Arts Foundation. Hopefully someone will come up with something interesting. We will put this out to the members and see what comes back.