What you need for batik on silk is: silk, of course, silk paints, a stretcher frame, either 3 point pins or hooks and rubber bands (to stretch the silk onto your frame), bee wax and paraffin wax, a wax heater, tjanting and brushes to apply the wax and the colours, and iron and paper to remove the wax.
TIP: You can also need blotting paper (to absorb excessive moisture) and jars (to mix colours and to put these mixings away).

Once you have chosen the design, the silk must be placed on the wooden frame and stretched tightly with the 3 point pins, placing a pin every 5 or 10 cms approx. If you are going to paint a picture, you have to leave a margin around, since you will need it to attach it to the frame.
TIP: If you are painting scarfs (with already-finished edges), you'd better to use hooks and rubber bands to attach the silk to the frame, so that we will avoid the paint marks left by the pins.

Melt bee wax and paraffin wax in the heater and paint the silk with the lightest colour. A foam brush will be useful for it.
TIP: The quantity of bee wax and paraffin wax sets the crackle effects. The more paraffine you use, the more crackle effect you have. Also you will avoid the crackle by maintaining the silk on the stretcher frame, but if you want some crackle, you can remove it from the frame and wrinkle it. Then put it again on the frame to apply the following colour.

Once the colour is dry, you are ready to apply the melted wax. You can do it with either a tjanting or a brush. The design that we are drawing will remain with the colour that we have applied previously. If we have drawn a pattern on an orange layer, this will remain orange in the final result.
TIP: It is important to apply the wax once the silk is dry, because if it is wet it won't act as a resist. To avoid excessive moisture, use blotting paper.

Now you are ready to apply another colour layer. This colour should be, obviously, different to the one of the previous layer. Usually it is used a darker colour in the same range. If some drops remain on the wax, you can remove it with blotting paper. Once this last colour layer is dry, we will apply another wax layer, and so on, until we reach the desired result.

During this process of wax and colour application, if we want a crackle of a certain colour, we will remove the silk from the frame, wrinkle it, put it again on the frame, and apply the crackle colour.
TIP: Usually it is enough to do this in the last wax layer. We get a continuous and thin crackle, a thick one, star shaped... depending on how we wrinkle the cloth. Then we can apply the darkest colour layer (it could be black) and remove the drops on the wax.

Once the design is over and the last colour layer is dry, we will remove the wax from the cloth. We will iron the material with a layer of paper underneath it, and a single sheet on top. While the paper absorb the wax you will have to renew it. You will have to iron the cloth until no wax is on it.
TIP: You can use newspapers if they are old (a couple of months could be enough). This avoid the ink to stain our silk.

The colours are fixed by ironing or steaming, depending on the paint. To steam it, roll the silk in newspaper or cotton fabric with tinfoil on the edges, put it into a basket covered by tinfoil, and place it into a pressure cooker with enough water for 1 hour. The basket mustn't touch the water (you can place something under it).
TIP: The method of fixing the colour depends on the chemistry of the dye or paint you are using. Generally, the best results are achieved with dyes fixed with steam. Setting paints with heat will give us a stiff fabric without drape.

Handwash the silk carefully silk with lukewarm water to get rid of the spare dye. Hang it out and, when it's still wet, iron it at medium temperature. Then you can stretch it on a wooden frame.
TIP: A first dry clean could be necessary, but then you can wash your silks with an specific soap. You can see the silk cares by clicking here.

Now you have a beautiful, original bright-coloured silk batik. It can be washed separately if it gets dirty or dusty, by using soft soap and cold water.
As any other hand-made painting, it shouldn't be exposed directly to sun, or else it would fade.