St Mary`s NS Sandyford – SESSION 5
23 February 2016
Our 5th session was a very busy one in the class room: we continued using hot wax for batik processes, but we also introduced a professional wax heater and wax application techniques.
This equipment certainly needs a careful, safe set up in a class room and a structured way to include it in a school session involving a full class. We tried to keep everyone busy, focused and occupied with various activities: drawing places and locations of selected memories, preparing sketches for the batik piece and working on write ups of previous sessions.
Dividing the class this way we were able to work with 4 children at a time from the hot wax pot and keep the process safe and rewarding.
The children prepared two batik pieces with a mixture of pure beeswax and paraffin wax: one referencing the chosen location/place/space, the other a multiple line drawing of simple geometric shapes. The geometric shapes were carved/scratched with large masonry nails afterwards, preparing them for a crackled, textured batik finish.
I also would like to include a few pictures of the very impressive, colourful and creative displays of previous works on the corridor, just outside of the classroom. This is a small school building where one needs to be very inventive to find an extra space for anything, including art works!!