A film still found of striped fish was the inspiration to the following piece of art, dyed in complementary and analogous colors.

I mixed yellow and red Jacquard’s paint dye and painted the fish onto a cotton, linen remnant.

I then painted over the fish with melted wax and where ever I wanted it left white.

The dye bath was a light mixture of Caribbean Blue.

I let it dry and placed it in the window to see the image clearly.

I brushed on the melted wax where I wanted the light blue to remain.

Then, dyed it in a darker shade of Caribbean Blue.

Hung it up to dry. Here the light and darker blue show well.

The next dye bath was an even deeper shade of blue.

In the window all the colors can be seen.

The last dye bath was Black and Golden Yellow.

When dyed over the Caribbean Blues, it turned the cloth into a deep green hue.

I painted over the fish with more orange dye after boiling out all the wax, to brighten it up a bit.

Final piece back lit from afternoon light in window.

This was a challenging piece because of the amount of wax applied and with the final dye, I didn’t know what color would emerge. One can do test pieces, but I like the surprise. I did crumple up the piece before the final dye quite a bit which let in more darkness than wanted, so I ended up adding another layer of orange to the fish.

Here is a link to a more instructional way of doing batik. Fish in the big blue ocean, batik style

To see batik gallery visit this site Batik as Contemporary Art