When we were at the Science Center to see the dinosaur exhibition in June, we picked up a Batik painting kit with a picture of a dinosaur. It is basically a picture drawn onto a piece of fabric with a wax outline on a cardboard frame, 6 fabric paints and a paintbrush.
Batik painting is a terrific activity for young children because they are free to be as creative as they want with the colours and the end result still looks like a picture they can be proud of.
Batik painting kits for children are available at MPH Bookstore and Art Friend in The Gardens, Midvalley. You can also purchase them online from Kidz Art and Craft.
You can also teach your child the whole process of batik painting and let your child design his own pattern or picture. I did a similar activity using silk in a textiles class once. It involved drawing a design onto a piece of fabric using quick wax and painting it in using fabric paints. With your child, you may want to draw the picture with a pencil first before tracing over it with quick wax.
Note: Traditional batik painting uses melted wax for the outline which is messy and hot. Quick wax doesn’t require any heating or melting making it more suitable for children. The downside to quick wax is that it is sticky and if your fabric is folded it can stick together – at least that was the problem I had last time. I don’t know if the newer forms of quick wax have been modified to overcome this problem.
Here’s a video of the process:
Batik Painting Kits
Colorbok Spark Batik Fabric Painting Kit
- The setasilk atelier set includes 10 assorted 45 ml bottles, 1 squirrel brush n-degree 8, 1 sponge, 1 mini palette, 1 water based gutta 20 ml gold, and a leaflet of instructions and ideas
- The setasilk colors can be used on all types of silk; they may be thinned using setasilk thinner; the colors are air dry in a few minutes
- The setasilk colors are fixed by ironing 3 to 4 minutes on the reverse side of the fabric with a hot iron; 48-hour after fixing, colors resist hand washing and dry cleaning
- For application, Pebeo recommends using pure squirrel brushes which are ideal for painting on silk as they are soft and very thin, with a high retention capacity
- Clean brushes with soapy water
More Art Fun:
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