Name: Heather Berryman
Message: Hi. I appreciate the extensive information on your website. I would like to teach a small 4th and 5th grade class to batik. It's been many years since I batiked, but I feel that good supervision would make it possible for kids to learn to batik a simple pattern on about a 12" square of cotton. Would you please give me your opinion about this and whether I should only have one dye color or only primaries and also whether additive dye coloring is possible with the Procion MX colors that are closest to primary colors? Thanks!

I would recommend against teaching children of this age to do true batik. Melted wax is, ideally, around 240 degrees F. (115 C.) and is quite hazardous. One rambunctious or misbehaving child could result in a tragic burn.

Using a water-soluble resist would be an excellent substitute. The results are never quite the same as in real wax batik, but the color technique is the same, and the results can be beautiful. There are many possible choices for water-soluble-resists - see Dharma Trading Company's selection - but perhaps the most convenient resist would be Elmer's Washable Blue Glue Gel. This is actually quite a good resist product to use.

To use a water-soluble resist, it is important to paint the dye on, rather than using the tie-dye recipe. In particular, you must not pre-soak the fabric in soda ash, after applying the resist, as the resist will simply wash off. Also, the fabric must be absolutely dry before applying the resist (the same is true for applying wax in real batik). You can fix the dye by mixing the soda ash in with the dye before applying (mix only enough of this dye solution for one day at a time), or by painting the fabric after dyeing with sodium silicate solution (e.g., Dharma's AfterFix) instead of soda ash, or by presoaking the fabric a week in advance and thoroughly line-drying it, so that the soda ash is mixed into the fabric. Any of these work fine as a substitute for pre-soaking fabric in soda ash and dyeing it while it is still wet. The soaking and drying technique would be suitable only if the children are doing a single dyeing, instead of repeated dyeings.

Whether to do one color, or several, depends only on how complicated you wish to make this. If you do multiple layers, it will be a project that takes days - apply the resist, dye with soda ash mixed into the dye, allow to dry throughly, apply another layer of resist, dye again, etc. A single layer would be a much easier project for this age group. With fiber reactive dyes such as Procion MX dyes, however, multiple colors can be used for even a single dye layer, however, and can make the project more fun. To do additive layers, first start with the lightest color, yellow, of course.

The children should paint the dye onto the resisted fabric, using a paintbrush most likely. It may be easier to use the dye as paint if you mix some sodium alginate into the dye solutions, to thicken it. (Here's a recipe.) It works best to mix the alginate with water in a blender, the day before before mixing in the dyes. You should not mix dye in a blender in which you will be preparing food in the future, but alginate is okay in a food-use blender, as it is a fairly common food additive, and urea is safe, too; just mix them with water in the blender, then transfer to another (non food) container to mix the dye in by stirring or shaking. Once thickened appropriately, the dye can be painted on just like poster paint. Don't forget to add the soda ash immediately before use.