so i plug in the crock pot- the thing with the wax and brushes- get ready to paint up a primed piece of hemp to paint. ganesh?mmm no. shiva? mmm no. a happy tree?mmm no. freeform. Not even that. its like a musicians having all the notes in the front of his hands and not being able to play something coherent. its been driving me nuts these past few days. i cant seem to grasp a vision of anything. so in times like these...i say 'just sit down anyway and force it out"
so i start: pictures to be added as the project progresses (this is my first documentation!!):
initial-
drawing out the idea in pencil - folding for guidelines and using a romano cheese container lid for a circle template.....
(photo credit goes to azie)
working at sunset doesnt prove to be for good light. but i draw out all the lines before the wax gets to the fabric.
________
___________________________________now to sit and obsesses over the color choices...
to be continued....
- ok day 2- about 2PM.... I'm waiting for my best friend beth to get here so we can dye some curtains for her new apartment. While I wait- i put more on the mandala to kill some time.
I drew more on with pencil... the mandala just wanted to keep growing....
plugged in the crock pot again..... i found this cool radio station that been streaming beatles and beatles related music so i've been listening to this all day. keeps the blues away.... good stuff. I love hearing the travelling wilburys too on there. My dad stopped by too. his first time out driving in a long time. I was proud of him.
the crock pot of doom! argh! i dare not try to get that tinfoil out. i like the skin on my fingers...
waxing and waning....
drawing the design on with the wax...... so far- or at least what i want to stay white. I'm still obsessing about the colors.... for whatever reason- im on a fuchsia/magenta thing lately- i even just bought some magenta hair dye. i dont really want to paint any magenta onto this- but these things start to grow a mind of their own once they get going. I guess the forced design is good. I've been getting a whole bunch of crazy ideas now about painting it in....beatles inspired for this time.... jeez i love this radio station...
enjoy the progress so far!**
_________________________________
to be continued....
yesterday was easter-- today is a fuzzy monday- i'm having a "walking in space" kinda day. Not too motivated to pull out the dye- but I tried to anyway.
I'm getting picky and really not digging the middle part. I'm very critical when it comes to my art. ugh. It's drying right now- once thats dry- i figure I"ll wax over what i painted. then go from there. Making plans for art's outcomes really isn't my strong suit. I kinda just deal with them as I go along. Great quality to have, huh? After I got my Ganesha tattoo fixed- It started a flood of something. Now it's dry again. :( Dyer's block. I go back to the tattoo guy Wednesday night. Maybe it'll start something up again. until then- i forge on. this next stage of the batik should get me outta this funk.
- monday
Today I woke up terrible. Feeling wicked horrible and just so sick- I went back to bed. I woke up and figured I should do something to get moving and out and about.... i had a good feeling about todays waxing and dyeing.... i dyed the square with yellow on the inside, and green along the outside edges.... after it dried- the went along with the points of the mandala with the tjanting as well as using a paintbrush...
after this: I made up a batch of blue. 2 blues- cerulean and turquoise.....
made a huge mess in the bathtub. Like- huge. Everything got dyed blue. yikes. my husband does not like the dye in the tub- but i have no other choice. I'll clean it up. Damn rinsing. Its the step I don't like at all. My hands are BLUE. Add that to gold nail polish and I have Martian hands. It's pretty scary.
-anyway....so i dunked both ends of the square in 2 shoebox tupperwares in the same way the yellow went into the green....the center a messy green... from the turq dyed over the yellow into a cool deep blue. I think I got myself going again into the dyeing. i just felt like crap there for a while. blech.
drying on the fence out back. theyre still out there, so i have no idea when the next stage will be. stay tuned...
Day 4- i think? i forget. it dried- and went through the wax process again. I really didn't want to cover up that awesome turnout of blue into green. it really looked spacey fun. oh well. i had to do it....I waxed the next leg of mandala petals- theyre fancy. then it went into the hot pink dye bath. i tried to avoid the magenta- but it came up and got me! Its an old hot pink. YEARS old passed down from the woman who taught me dyeing- so i figured it wouldnt give so much of a poke- more of a slight nudge for the color. It turned the dyebath like a weird burgundy i guess from the blue/green still being in the fabric. The tub is nice and sparkly now. For all you artists- i recommend Dr Bronner's Sal Suds for cleanups.... !!! its awesome and it has a bizarre tendency to keep dirt at bay after washing something. Cant explain it - but my kitchen floor still looks freshly mopped days later. And if you clean as often as I do- then it's just spiffy.
Anyway back to the dye-
This is what it looked like this morning! Holding it up to the light you can see all those colors buried under the wax. Well this is the final curtain, yes- i did it my way....
Next up today is the final bath. BLACK. the color that doesnt come out of your hands for a week. I'm gonna wear gloves for this one- black hands and gold nail polish? no thanks. All the while testing the limits of how big the images I upload. thanks for the bandwidth, google.
up next- the black dye and the boiling!!! yay! fun!
stay tuned.....
whee- the next day... Friday the 13th...kinda weird today was the black dye day. i love a fresh black dye, though. it was a nice brand new container of fluffy powder. its black. its none more black. I forgot to put on rubber gloves- but its ok- theyre kinda grey. 
not so bad. I had a pair of crazy blue china slippers too i wanted black so they went in the bucket too. now its in the final stage- hanging to dry on the back fence. i guess i should invest in a clothesline, huh? its been neat documenting all of this so far- thanks for being spectators to this, blog readers. I love this art medium- and the stages are almost like a samsara of lives. waxing poetic now- no pun intended- every piece is its own bird. no doubt. every dye and batik seems to grow a life of its own- telling me where to add things, dye colors, etc... its kinda neat serving the muse whatever she wants at the time. ... next up- once this dries outside- it gets boiled and dried. i love new burns and scars!
stay tuned....
Ok... its 9:30... that baby dried out.... 
much to my surprise- the black didn't blacken it out! but with that color- you need to keep it in the bucket for a good long time to get a nice dark rich tone. Unfortunately- 1 of the ingredients in the dye bath- soda ash (the recipe is made up of water, salt, dye and soda ash) does a number on the wax and causes it to eat away with every dunk...so you only leave the waxed piece in the dye bucket about a ha
lf hour. and black is a sinister color- its either friend or foe- it gets in every crack and crevice- it darkened the piece ultimately- but i was glad the orangey and deep gorgeous blue tones stayed. if i wanted a deeper black- i would have had to paint it on- but i didnt- 
i like bucket dyeing better for the most part. esp. with the darker shades. i left those slippers in the bucket for about 3 hours- and yay!!! I have NEW black slippers! I'm thinking of sewing some beads and sequins on them maybe... anyhow- its boil time at my house! i have a shitty pot i just use for dyes- fill it with super hot water and wait for it to boil. once it gets rolling- you dunk that baby in. after a final dyebath- 
the dye must be rinsed out as much as possible- cause once any dye gets into the pot while boiling- it sticks to the fabric. so rinse! rinse rinse! After waiting 3 minutes on a rolling boil, the wax is out- and it gets run downstairs to the warshin machine. HOT wash cycle- lotta soap! ok- do the wash- (btw- my 4 year old daughter is taking all the pictures here- she wanted to take one of "mommy waiting") then I had to run a few errands today for my dad ( pardon me while i ramble here for a bit)- had to deal with nasty grey hands while handing people money and stuff at stores. its totally embarrassing-lol. i forget they are colored by the time i get to the store. so I'm out and about- hearing stories from my dad about this band the Muffins that used to play at this local bar around here in 1966 - 6 days a week! my dad was a bartender at another bar close by here at the shore- and the owner decided to get the one day the Muffins werent playing and book them at his bar up the road. this band drew at least 100 people a night during the summer (and where are crowds like that now?)... my dad mentioned the lead singer of this band was a bit of a nutcase- but excellent at what he did.... the bar where my dad worked- called D'Jais, also had a bouncer named Terry McGovern that worked there. Terry knew this kid who was 16 or 17, not of legal age and just wanted to watch the band play-- and Terry asked D Jai (my dads boss) if it was ok if this kid could come in. D Jai said yeah- as long as he just sits there and doesnt walk around the bar.... So this kid used to come in every Monday night and watch this lead singer of the muffins. My dad described him as this skinny kid with crazy hair and pimples... turns out it was bruce springsteen. Terry later - and still now- works for Bruce. My dad swears Bruce replicated his whole thing and image from that lead singer of the Muffins, who he said later disappeared and probably went crazy someplace. LOL!!! Dad also told me later on Bruce auditioned to get a gig at D'Jais and they said no to him... I love my dad's stories- I definitely need him to write them down and make a book out of them one day... anyhow-- all the while while i'm hanging out with azalea and my dad- I'm gone from the washer- I go home and go right to the washer to see the washed out mandala....
NEAR TRAGEDY...
I forgot to put the lid down on the washer and it never started!!!! It sat and was stewing in the washing machine the entire time I was out and hearing Springsteen stories from my dad. Now this black dye- remember is NOT forgiving- that piece was sitting- with all the wax boiled out and NAKED in the Kenmore -floating sadly in a black pool of dye for about 2 hours. I gasped- screamed a little bit- and closed the lid--- praying when it came out the black wouldnt cover all that work.
........................................................ and the final result... unexpected beauty. this piece now has a voice... a rich baritone of color! I'm so happy that lovely blue wound up never
getting covered up by the black (or grey now), it suffered minimal black dye intrusion, and the orange is surreal. cosmic rust is what i'll call it. it is NOT at ALL what I expected her to look like- and theres an annoying mistake I made that I'm not going to worry about. Lastly- this hemp fabric takes dyes almost too well- i doubt i'll be dunking this fabric anymore...I'll stick to just painting it and printing on it.
tel me what you think if you've stuck with me this far....
its been a nice week and some extra working on this and photographing the process- (again- photo credit goes to the 4 yr old miss azalea standing on a chair mostly and my hubby)
in light*
b:)
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