While I was revisiting my library of art books for last month's zine, I re-discovered the book: Creative Embroidery by: Jan Beaney & Jean Littlejohn. In this book I found a quick technique to use wax to help you create patterns from painted backgrounds. We all have background papers that we have created and accumulated. Mine have been piling up for quite some time and I decided to give this wax resist a try. You don't need many supplies: painted background papers * melting pot *wax *sponge *scissors *water based black ink (I used Sumi Ink) *brush. (Make sure your ink is water-based or you will have a terrible mess!)
Simply cut your sponge into a variety of shapes, melt your wax, dip the sponge into the wax and stamp your painted background papers with it. You can get quite a few stampings done, as the sponge really holds the melted wax and it takes a little while for it to cool on the sponge.
Just continue dipping the sponge into the hot wax and stamp until you have your paper covered in a random fashion. You don't want to completely cover the paper with the wax or you won't get the fabulous results this technique provides. Once the wax has cooled, mix ink with a little water. (The book recommends 3 parts water to 1 part ink, but I found this to be too thin and didn't like the final result. I used a ration of about 1:1). Coat the entire paper with the ink and let it dry. You can wipe the ink off of the waxed areas with a wet paper towel, but I liked the veiny look the ink on top of the wax provided. Interesting textures! Did you notice that the metallic paint also acted as a resist? What a neat surprise! Have fun experimenting with this fun technique!
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