Jayesh Mota

Batik

The ancient art that has an origin of more than a 2000 years uses wax and dyes to create magic on fabrics. The art is appreciated all over the world due to its unique method of designing. The term finds its origin from the work ‘Ambatik’ which means a piece of cloth with small dots or writing with wax or drawing in broken lines.

Traditionally, cotton and silk fabrics were used. The process is a combination of three steps including waxing, dying, and scraping. The three steps can be briefed in a way where the process starts with creating designs on certain pre-defined areas of the fabric. Then the fabric is dyed followed by boiling the cloth to remove the wax resulting in an unconventional pattern on the fabric.

There are four different techniques of making Batik printed cloth which includes:

1. The splash method – In this procedure, the wax is splashed over the fabric in an arbitrary manner and then the dye is poured. This results in a virtual explosion of random designs and colors.

2. The screen printing process – This method involves the use of a stencil to carve the designs in an orderly and defined manner.

3. The hand painting method – This procedure basically utilizes the craft of Kalamkari to draw the structures and separate the wax.

4. A fourth method used is the scratch and starch resist method.