Earth Day Glue Batik

Continuing with our "Big Blue Marble" theme here is a glue batik pillowcase we made in honor of Earth day.

Very easy for the kids to do and you get fantastic results.

I have a beginner glue batik post here.  For this project I took a piece of gator board (it's like a plastic version of corrugated cardboard) and I covered it with some wax paper.  You could use an art board or a piece of cardboard just don't forget the wax paper. 

You want it as close to the same size as the pillowcase as you can get.  My gator board is smaller so I'm making my design smaller to account for this.

Slip the pillowcase over top the board.  This keeps our design from bleeding thru to the other side.

It helps if you have a reference photo.  You also need washable gel glue.  I use the dollar store brand or Elmer's school glue.

To get a nice round earth I'm taking a large bowl and tracing my design in with pencil.

Don't worry too much about the pencil lines...as long as they are light the tend to get washed out later.

Here my helper Tika the cockatiel gets into the act.

Once you have traced out your design in pencil you can start going over your lines with the gel glue.  Draw it out just like you did with the pencil.  Any areas you want to stay white fill in with the gel glue.

Let dry....it will take about 24 hrs. Make sure to leave the board in the pillowcase.

Before painting just lift the pillowcase up a bit in case it is stuck to the board but keep the board in place for painting.

Using acrylic paint, paint in your design.   To stop the colors from mixing you can let one area dry a bit before painting next to it with a different color.

Here I painted the land parts first and by the time I went to paint the ocean the edges of the land area was dry.

Fill in your background areas.  You can water your paint down a bit to make this go faster.   I kept my border white as my board is smaller than my pillowcase and I like the way it looks.

Let the paint dry with the board in place.

When the paint is dry remove the board and soak the pillowcase in very warm/hot water for about 30 minutes.  If the glue has not washed away by then you can scrub it a bit.  Dry and you are good to go.


That's it.  I LOVE using the gel glue batik method and there are numerous applications.  You can even design your own fabric to then create with.

Give it a try.

Before I forget here is an updated "big Blue Marble" project I did with Grade 1.  We traced out our circles and then painted but I had them paint the entire Earth marble blue. 

Then using templates I made we traced out the land on green or brown contsruction paper.  We glued this on our blue marble and sponged on some clouds with white paint.  I found this was easier for them.

Click on the photo to see bigger.