Summer School

20 – 24 July 2009

This was my second time as one of the tutors at the ‘Arts & Crafts Summer School’ held at Beaufort Community School in Gloucester, England by the Gloucester Arts & Crafts Group. Over the week a mix of 2, 3 and 5 day workshops are held covering all sorts of art and craft skills such as calligraphy, botanical art, pastels, oils, chair making, mosaics, glass engraving, beadwork and willow weaving to name but a few.

Once again I had a 5-day batik workshop to run and although I only had 4 students booked for my workshop it worked well as each student therefore had plenty of room to work in and around the waxpots. Three of the ladies, Del, Hazel and Jenny, were with me last year; it was lovely to see them again and as we now know each other that bit better it was great having them feel that they knew me well enough for a bit of fun and banter. Carol was new, so whilst I could pretty much leave the other ladies to forge ahead with their exploration of batik, this meant I was on hand to help her as much as she needed as well as do a couple of projects myself in between.

We started the week on Day One with basic skills of using the wax, brushes, tjantings (batik pens) and the silk paints. Those who had previously done batik with me had the option of cracking straight on with their own projects or refreshing themselves with the step-by-step basic exercises.
They opted for the latter and said they found it very useful as there were some important or useful tips/techniques that they had forgotten.



On Day Two I took Carol step-by-step through a pansy head design, whilst the others started their own projects. Carol was finding it tricky getting her head around the technique (as do most who are new to the medium); throughout the week she battled on bravely and produced some lovely pieces to take home. She did very well and I hope she enjoyed her first foray into batik, her last piece in particular showed great promise should she wish to do more.

It’s not unusual to find the medium hard to understand and think your way around at first; I have found that the ratio is about half and half between those that seem to pick it up straight away and those that need time (like a few days) to work it out. It can be difficult to understand the technique and process, particularly when approaching a piece of work more involved than a couple of colour and wax applications. An understanding of colour mixing helps enormously and being able to think of a picture in reverse and in ‘layers’ when ‘painting’ helps too. I find a 5-day workshop is great for those new to batik as it gives them time to get to grips with the medium and learn to understand the process and then when the penny drops they are ‘away’ and can have real fun with it. Doing shorter workshops of one day or even two days is pretty full on and there’s far too much to take in and get your head around if you are finding it tricky. Once the penny does drop it’s like an ‘Eureka!’ moment, and I love to see that happen and then see what the student produces after that.

Day Three, Four and Five the ladies concentrated on their own projects taking inspiration from images they found in books or their own photographs. Here's some of their work from the week.


Del, Hazel and Jenny were very productive, as I expected them to be having done batik before and it was great to see them getting more adventurous and experimental with their batiks. Salt was used quite a bit this year as they played with the differing effects you can get with both fine and coarse grain salt crystals.

Whilst everyone was busy and not requiring my immediate attention I did a couple of little projects to show them the sort of things you can do with batik to make them into something more than a picture to frame. I pinned two pansy head batiks to a cushion (perhaps I should sew them into a proper cushion cover!), did a chameleon batik on a cotton bag and made a ‘wrap round’ for a lampshade. I wanted to give them ideas and think beyond the square of cotton they were working on. Hazel took up the challenge of a bag with a lily head and I hope seeds of ideas have been planted for possible future use into all of their minds.