Fun and Easy Fabric Batik Art Craft for Kids
I have been quite keen to try out some new painting techniques and process art with the kids and so we started with a fun batik art project over the half term. Well, that’s actually the only process art project we attempted – but still, it’s a start! Bare in mind that Batik art isn’t a one day process, there are a few steps with this process but that said – it’s a good one for kiddos with little concentration! We’d googled all the different ways of making a Batik Craft and although the wax crayons sounded so much fun, I decided to stick with washable glue as the children could more easily draw recognisable patterns. I think we’ll leave the melting wax for another time! Maybe some secret messages at some point?!
If you’d like to have a go at some Batik Art and Craft, you will need…….
- White Fabric. We used 30 x 30cm napkins
- Elmers Washable Glue (we found ours on Amazon. I haven’t tried any other types of glue but Elmers Washable Glue worked really well.)
- Acrylic Craft Paint
- Baking Paper
- Paint Brushes
Easy Batik Craft
- First start by putting some baking paper under your napkin (as when the glue goes through you don’t want anything adding colour that runs)
- Draw your designs with the Elmers washable glue onto your napkin. It works best to draw big, clear, blocked designs like hearts, sunshine etc….. Fiddly designs didn’t really come out as well for us (although it might if you had a more fine nibbed glue pot.)
- Leave the napkins to dry for several hours. We left ours for a day.
- Paint the entire napkin with acrylic paints, you can water these down a little but not too much otherwise your Batik Craft won’t be vibrant! Try to use a variety of colours all over the napkin. Be careful to cover all your surfaces, including the floor – we may have had a disasterous flip of a red paint pot meaning the carpeted floor looked like a murder scene. Thankfully the carpets are being taken up soon!
- Leave your Batik Craft to completely dry. This can take a day or two. Everything needs to be completely dry before rinsing.
- Rinse your Batik Craft in warm water in a bath or sink. You may need a nail brush to scrub the glue completely off. Take care to rinse your bath/ sink afterwards so the colour doesn’t stain! You should see that the glue peels off to reveal the white fabric underneath.
- Again, leave to fully dry and then heat set the paint by placing the fabric in your tumble dryer (on the highest heat recommended for your fabric) for about 10 minutes and then iron with a cloth over it. Wash and dry painted fabric separately the first few times!
Here are our Batik Masterpieces! We decided to frame them for the kid’s bedrooms but I you could make T.Shirts, dresses, tablecloths – any thing you can think of! Hope you have fun trying this at home!
Pin to try out later:
