The Little Orchid

There is a saying that goes like this – “The orchid is Mother Nature’s masterpiece.” and it is that saying that makes me appreciate orchids. Using that as my subject, I made simple home setup and decided to make a square scarf.

So this was a little home adventure with my own frame that was made out of plywood, bolts and nuts.

In total, it took me a solid one and half to complete the entire scarf. So once I sketched the design onto the scarf and propped it onto the frame, I started to wax resist the design.

The purpose of the wax is to prevent the colours from merging and losing the design. There are various ways to doing this. There is also another type of resist that is used is called gutta. This is mainly used for silk painting. Not something I will explore anytime soon. As for the problems faced with using wax. You will have to very cautious as to not allow the wax to over boil. This allows the mixture of paraffin and resin to stay merged and create thicker lines…

Next was the colouring process. The colours that are used are in powder form so you as the designer are able to control the colour thickness with water. Since my background design was of a pastel blue, the mixing was more water than powder. However there was one minor failure in this piece that somehow went unnoticed. I had tried to create some effects on the plain background with salt and due to the pastel colour, this effect went unnoticed.

The hardest part was managing to remove the wax. You will definitely need to be very careful when doing this as you can either scald yourself or ruin your stove if not careful.

Not long after that, I decided to explore an abstract design but this time using cotton as the base. One of the major differences is the fabrics ability to contain the water-based inks and retain it for a long period allowing the dye to set in creating in this case a fiery imagery.

More designs to be shared pretty soon.