Hi Hive Lovers
Batik is one of the works of painting on cloth. The painting will become a certain motif or pattern that lasts a long time or will never fade, both in shape and color.
What makes batik expensive is that all the motifs or patterns are painted by hand slowly until they fill all parts of the fabric. Even though there are currently machine-printed batiks available, hand-painted batiks are still a favorite for batik lovers.
Batik will also be of higher quality and the price will be more expensive if the motif is complicated and the pattern is diverse and neat.
The hallmark of hand-painted batik is painting on white cloth which will later be colored according to taste. The focus of the painting is to make the border areas of various patterns of the image on the white cloth, so that when coloring the entire area of the fabric, the color in the border of the pattern will not change and the color will be more dominant with the color of the fabric after it is colored.
The dominant color is caused by the ink used for painting which is called "Lilin".
Lilin is a liquid made from a mixture of chemical powders as adhesives that seep into the fibers of the fabric and several types of wood below:
Unfortunately, I did not record the names of the types of wood, what I really know and remember is coir coconut. Chemicals as adhesives and all the wood materials are mixed and cooked until all the liquid content of the wood comes out and becomes oil. After the temperature is cold, then filtered so that the liquid is completely clean.
The painting tool used is called "Canting".
It is truly a unique painting tool because of its shape which consists of a small tube containing Lilin which has a small pipe that is curved and placed on a piece of twig as a handle. When going to paint batik, the small tube is dipped into the Lilin liquid until it is full, but be careful not to spill.
This time I witnessed the process of learning to make batik with a simple pattern. Because this is still a process of learning to make batik, the pattern or motif chosen is the simplest one. Here are some of the batik painting processes:
If you have the opportunity to visit Indonesia, then you must try to paint batik with your own motif and you will take it home as a keepsake and it is a batik painting made by yourself.
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