Rubber Cement Batik

A couple weeks ago we looked at Batik in co-op art. Instead of putting down pigment to make the art, you are using a masking agent to resist a layering pigment. I developed this project to show the batik process without using hot wax and dye baths and fabric. Here is the earlier post with more detailed instruction on the "how to."

Here is a yellow and orange one I did. You can see in the first picture where the centers are masking the white paper under it, then the first yellow wash has dried and then been masked with the rubber cement in petal shapes.

 After the rubber cement petals dried, the last wash of red/orange was painted over the top. Let dry and rub off the cement to reveal your layers of colorful design.

This year I have been having the students make greeting cards based on the project for the day when they have extra time in class. This worked great for this project, as there is a lot of waiting for pages to dry.

We switched between card and main paper to lay down the rubber cement and watercolor so there was time for each to dry while doing the other. Papers can be fanned to speed drying. Here are two examples of student work. The orange sun is W's. These did not have the rubber cement rubbed off yet, so the design is not as clear as it would be when done.