Can you resist me ?

Back in college, one of my first live experiences with manual Print-making was the wax resist-dyeing technique, Batik. It was that part of the course curriculum which interested me as an aspiring Print Designer. Batik making is traditional to my land. This was another reason of my increasing inquisitiveness about it. Applying beeswax on cotton fabric with tjanting, resisting, coloring and boiling to remove the wax for final results was a  fun process. I remember the good old times spent with batch-mates at the basement textile lab, working & having fun together.

Resisting wax on fabric is easy. What is hard is to resist appreciating & trying this brilliant hands-on print-making technique. 🙂

I have always been minimal with my approach in Design. This time too. Here are a few of my Explorations with Batik.
Table Fork became my tjanting. I began stamping with my newly discovered tool.
If you wish to try this at home, do not use the fork for diving into your salads after using it for batik. Keep aside one just for your explorations.

I used a stencil to do this. However, a copper stamp will give better results if you want blocked motifs. Here, I tried to bring in a block-printing effect with indigo color by using wax resist.

We played tic-tac-toe during many a boring lectures. I thought why not make a print inspired by it. Thoughts if printed make memorable imprints in our minds. Don’t they?

Here, I have used Crackling and Carving techniques to achieve such an effect. If you want cracks, let the wax dry and then you crush the cloth. For carving, I used a needle back. You may take any sharp object that is easy on cotton fabric.

Dripping wax through a tjanting results in spitter-spatter. To me it results in a starry night on a piece of cotton.

I mixed all my techniques to create a tribal pattern. This is a 3-colored Batik. You feel  great joyous pleasure when you achieve it.

I am so hooked to this crafty thing that if I ever get a chance to visit Indonesia or Sri-Lanka, I am going to fill up suitcases of Batik printed fabric.

It is a beautiful form of print-making on fabric. I recommend doing it once in a lifetime. I can’t resist Batik. Can you ?

 

I have a terribly tiny tale to narrate inspired by Batik.
Here it is:

She asked, ‘Can you resist me?’
He said. ‘Yes’ as he poured hot wax on her.

She was ordinary cotton. He, a textile artist.