Batik on the cheap!

Today at Revive we used melted candle wax and used it to paint a pattern onto cotton fabric.  We then we took a clean brush and added colour.   We used ink for our colour but you could also use food colouring, watercolour paints or felt tipped pens. The wax acts as a resist when you apply the colour:

Here the ink is being added after the wax resist has been painted onto the fabric:

This technique isn't exact and can be frustrating if you're looking for perfection.  It helps your creative techniques to loosen up and you can see the beauty in the imperfection.  When you take away your own limitations of seeking or demanding perfection, of yourself or anything, you end up with a more abstract version and you could discover a new part of yourself and, after all, if it doesn't come out how you want it to, do another one. 

After the piece had dried, we ironed off the wax between layers of newspaper. The fabric remained uncoloured where the wax resist had been applied leaving pleasantly surprising results:

There's beauty in simplicity. Don't complicate things.

I found this morning quite a challenge as my recovery progresses.  Whilst everyone is being very chatty and upbeat, I found myself becoming quite tense and wanting to back off from the room and even go out to calm my tension.   And it's okay to do that.  There are very few limitations on what you can do or can be done for your mental health needs here.  As I've discovered. whilst I'm feeling all of this inside of me, others don't become affected by it and my challenge is simply to be kind to myself and live in the moment.

Thank you to community member Danae, for writing about this session and sharing her experiences about the benefit that creativity can have on  improving mental wellbeing.