I had the great opportunity to attend a fantastic gathering of creatives at the Art of the Carolina’s in Raleigh. Not only was it an inspirational learning experience, it was fantastic to network and take advantage of once in a year deeply discounted pricing from Jerry’s Artorama.
Of course, I took classes in media I hadn’t really tried including batik watercolor on Ginwashi rice paper, Oil and cold wax on wood panel, and fluid acrylics on Yupo. All but one of my sessions, Tom Lynch’s watercolor focal points, were abstract painting lessons.
In the batik watercolor class, the lovely and organized Kathie George provided us with kits, paint, wax, brushes, the Ginwashi paper with the orchids drawn out, and 5 or 6 full-sized drawings of the various stages for waxing.
We started by drawing a small section on the rice paper and then waxed certain sections that we needed to preserve white according to her diagram. Once the wax cooled, a light wash of light blue was applied as well as other colors according to her instructions.
After the first wash dried, we waxed over more sections to preserve them then applied another light wash in different colors. We kept repeating the process 5 more times, painting with darker and deeper colors as we progressed.
For the final layers (optional), we crumbled the artwork, painted with a dark color, then sealed the entire piece in paraffin wax to give it a crackle effect of aged paper.
In the final stage, we ironed the artwork under sheets of newspaper until all the wax came off. And Voila! Batik watercolor orchids on rice paper. As a final touch-up, Kathie recommends touching up areas as needed with watercolors and/or oil pastels.
Please visit Kathie’s web site, take a class, and purchase her art and/or batik kits here: https://kathiegeorgeart.com/.
The image we batiked, “Orchid Frenzy,” can be purchased from Kathie at this link: https://kathiegeorgeart.com/shopping/orchidfrenzy/
