About the Workshop
Discover the magic of batik and the wonderful variety and possibilities this resist technique has to offer. This three day workshops designed for all levels to discover a variety of approaches to this traditional Far Eastern technique decorating fabric, using hot liquid wax and fibre-reactive dyes. Explore both traditional and modern techniques and develop them into both pictorial art forms or purely expressive abstract designs on both fabric and paper.
What students will achieve:
You will learn methods of applying wax with a variety of tools; how to etch (sgraffito); how to create texture by crackling and spattering the wax. You will also learn how to apply colour in a variety of ways on cotton and paper, including direct-dyeing (hand-painting) and dip-dyeing. You will be shown how to build up layers of colour whilst capturing the detail by applying hot wax at each stage. The waxed areas will resist the next application of colour.
Rosi will take you through different projects - water, reflections, boats, flowers, birds. land and seascapes etc and show how to work individually from your own drawings or photos.
Material List
Your Instructor
Rosi Robinson
ROSI ROBINSON is a batik artist, teacher, lecturer and author. Though her grandmother was originally from Chester, Rosi was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. She studied at Vassar College, New York, U.S.A. and graduated with a B.A Hons in History. She taught for 43 years and was Head of Art at Cumnor House School in Sussex, UK. for twenty-eight of them. She retired from full-time teaching in 2013 but now lectures and teaches batik workshops throughout the world. She is also a member of the Sussex Guild, the Batik Guild and Craft Nova Scotia, Canada.
For 50 years, batik has been Rosi’s passion. Batik is a traditional resist technique of decorating fabric where wax is applied to the fabric to resist colourful dyes. Instead of waxing patterns to create clothing, Rosi pushes this traditional technique in figurative painterly way, creating pictures that are often mistaken for watercolour paintings. She has been fortunate to exhibit throughout the world including Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, U.S.A, Cana- da, China and Japan. She has also travelled widely in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, where she studied the technique of batik. She has had four solo exhibitions in the Barbican Library, London, during the last 19 years.
Rosi’s travels to the Far East, Europe and North America, have influenced her subject matter, which include land and seascapes, portraits and sporting scenes.
Rosi has been featured in numerous magazines, including ‘Artists’ and Illustrators’ Magazine’, ‘Craft and Design’ Magazine (Sept/Oct 2011) and ‘International Artist’ Magazine (Feb/March 2014) where she was a finalist in a competition. In the Aug/Sept 2015 issue of ‘International Artist ‘Magazine, she published a 10 page, stage-by-stage article titled - ‘Capturing the World in Wax and Dyes’.
Rosi is an author of three books on batik, including ‘Creative Batik’ (Search Press) 2001 (reprinted 2016 as a Search Press classic). She has a 7-minute film on ‘You Tube’ - Reflections in Batik with Rosi Robinson; and in 2012, she produced a double DVD ‘Batik Workshop - Fun with Paper and Fabric’ (Studio Galli) which has now been developed into online workshops.
In August, 2022, Rosi was featured on National TV - BBC Bargain Hunt, where she showed some of the waxing tools she uses and then demonstrated how she does batik. She was only on TV for under 5 minutes, but the response was amazing. She had so many orders for original batiks, giclee prints and greetings cards!
