Batik is an ancient art and a complex one. Batik, using wax as a resist, was developed in many places around the world. The Russians in Czarist times used wax as resist to produce their spectacular Easter eggs, the West Africans and Japanese used indigo dye and wax resist to create elegant fabrics, but nowhere was the batik art more advanced than in Java, the largest of the Indonesian islands.
Traditional batik in Java was made with a copper stamp or drawn on cloth by hand using a tool called a chanting. A chanting is a little copper bowl with a spout attached to a wood or bamboo handle. The chanting is dipped into hot wax. The artist draws with the chanting by using the law of gravity. The wax to pours out of the spout and penetrates the fabric.
Traditional batik, either tulis (hand drawn) or stamped, requires many application of wax and dye, but in modern times the process has been simplified. But mostly they work directly on white rayon. When the wax is removed, the lines are white. The art lies in the skillful drawing and the unique painting technique, which is best considered as watercolor on fabric.After wax has been applied to our line drawings, the fabric is stretched flat on a frame. The dyes we use to paint spread easily, too easily. The art is in controlling where they go, and how each color interacts with others, when to use a lot of water and when to use none at all.
The final product is a beautiful, durable and washable painting of fabric. These batiks will not fade, shrink or bleed.
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