From Launton School - Making Batik

Today some Year 6 children are talking about their recent experience of creating their own batik artwork.

We created some designs, using the theme ‘Grow Stronger Together’ to inspire us. Hopefully, our finished batik will be displayed in Bicester Library with four other primary schools’ batik designs. We think we might be able to see it there in May. Our designs include things like trees, leaves, acorns and people.

We started by using pencil and paper to create our designs, then when we were happy with our work we put the paper under some silk fabric, which we could see our designs through. We used hot wax in a tjanting to trace our pictures. A tjantingis a tool that keeps the wax warm so it flows a bit like ink from a pen. You can get double tjantings, but they are quite hard to control because the wax flows really quickly. When we had traced our pictures we used different coloured dyes to colour in between the wax lines on our pictures. The wax stops the dye from spreading and means that you only have colour where you want it to be. We used lots of different colours, like red, blue, yellow, green, pink and purple. When we were using the dyes we had to wear aprons and gloves to protect our clothes and hands, but some of us still got dye on our arms. Our favourite bit of batiking was using the tjanting and the coloured dyes. We are looking forward to seeing our artwork on display with other schools’ artwork and we are really proud of our work.

Chloe, Henry, Stanley and Kiera, Year 6

Above, and in the header image and on the front cover of the May issue of Launton Lines, are some of the children’s batik designs, inspired by the theme ‘Grow Stronger Together’. The batiks will be on display, with those from other local schools, in Bicester Library from 16 May.

Photos from Launton C of E School