Batiking: When Art and Fashion Meet – words Al Woods
There are a lot of hobbies that combine your love for arts and crafts with your love for fashion. T-shirt painting is perhaps the most popular example.
With good fabric paint and some creativity, you can produce your own unique T-shirts with gorgeous designs and stunning colours. You can also use the same paint to add designs to a canvas tote bag and other materials.
Batiking, on the other hand, isn’t as popular as T-shirt painting. That said, this traditional Indonesian art of adding patterns and design to silk and other fabrics is gaining traction among hobbyists and fashion lovers alike.
What is Batiking?
Before we can talk about batiking – the art of making batik – you need to take your time and look at some traditional batik fabrics first. It only takes a second to admire the gorgeous patterns and the beautiful lines you see in traditional batik.
Batik is produced in a unique way. Instead of drawing on the fabric directly, you use a special batik wax to mask the design or pattern you want to add to the fabric. The fabric itself is mostly silk, but you can also work with other materials too.
Once the mask is completed and the wax is entirely dry, the entire fabric is dyed through a dipping process. Fabric colouring is used to add colours to the entire fabric. The final step of the process is washing the wax away.
This final process will reveal a reversed pattern on the fabric. You can also get very creative in the way you colour the fabric; you can even use multiple colours and advanced techniques to produce a truly one of a kind batik for yourself.
Getting Started with Batiking
The art of making batik has been around for so long. It is now turning into a hobby that many fashion lovers enjoy, mainly because it combines art and fashion in such a beautiful way. You too can get started with batiking fairly easily.
Raaaft, a leading provider of art and craft supplies, has the traditional batik Tjanting tool (also known as Canting, a traditional pen for drawing wax patterns) in store. The online retailer also supplies batik wax that you can use out of the box.
As for the fabric, silk is still the best choice to go for. You can also use a fabric colouring agent of your choice depending on the final result you want to achieve. You can remove the batik wax by simply boiling it off; use water with a bit of soap to get the best result.
Making Your Pattern
Traditional batik patterns are gorgeous, but they are not always easy to mimic. It takes a lot of practice before you can complete an entire fabric or Batik summer dresses with your own unique pattern. This is part of the reason why traditional handmade batik is so expensive.
Of course, you can also go with any design you like. Some batik enthusiasts even go as far as using a flatbed printer to apply complex designs to the fabric using heated batik wax. It is a hobby that will indulge your love for art and fashion to the max.
Batiking: When Art and Fashion Meet – words Al Woods
