EXCURSION TO THE WORLD OF BATIKA

Batik – batik is an Indonesian word. Translated from Indonesian, the word “va” means cotton fabric, and “-tik” means “dot” or “drop”. Ambatik – draw, drop, hatch. The batik technique is based on the fact that paraffin, rubber glue, as well as some other resins and varnishes, when applied to the fabric, do not let the paint through them – or, as the artists say, “reserve” certain areas of the fabric from painting.

There are several types of batik – hot, cold, free painting. They differ in the way they reserve fabric. Wax is used as a reserve in hot batik. Wax is applied using a special tool called chanting. Waxed areas do not absorb paint and also limit its spread. Hot batik is called hot because wax is used in a “hot” molten form. This method is mainly used for applying a color image to a cotton fabric.Upon completion, wax is removed from the surface of the fabric. The effect of painting is achieved due to the layer-by-layer coating of fabric with paint.

Cold batik
Cold batik is used to a greater extent when creating a pattern on silk, although other fabrics can also be used here. In this case, the role of the backup composition is performed by special material. It can be prepared at home, but there are also ready-made reserves. They are a dense mass of rubber origin. There are both color and colorless reserves. The cold reserve is applied either with special tools – glass tubes with a tank, or special contours are used in tubes that are equipped with an elongated nose.
Free painting
The technique of free painting has become widespread, as it reveals the originality of the handwriting of each artist and the individual originality of the works inherent in manual labor. Free painting on fabrics made from natural silk and synthetic fibers is carried out mainly with aniline dyes (sometimes with various thickeners), as well as oil paints with special solvents. Particularly interesting results are obtained from the combination of free painting with contour strokes and finishing with a backup composition.
Free painting using saline
The essence of this method is as follows: the fabric stretched over the frame, depending on the nature of the pattern, is either impregnated with an aqueous solution of sodium chloride and, after drying, painted, or painted with basic dyes, into which sodium chloride solution is introduced. All this limits the spreadability of paint on the fabric, makes it possible to perform drawings with free strokes, varying the shape and degree of color saturation.
Free paints with the introduction of salt solution can be combined with conventional painting with cold batik. For this, some parts of the drawing are carried out in free painting with refinement of the graphic drawing, and the background overlap is carried out in areas limited by the backup composition.
Batik is a generic name for a variety of hand-painted fabric methods. The basis of all these techniques is the principle of redundancy, that is, covering with a non-dyeable composition of those parts of the fabric that should remain unpainted and form a pattern. This method for obtaining a fabric pattern from time immemorial was used in ancient Sumer, Peru, Japan, Sri Lanka, Indochina, and African countries. The homeland of batik is considered to be the island of Java in Indonesia, where to this day clothes made from hand-painted fabrics are very popular.
Modern fabric painting techniques are very diverse. Batik incorporated features and artistic techniques of many fine arts – watercolors, pastels, graphics, stained glass, mosaics. Significant simplification of painting techniques compared to traditional techniques and a variety of special tools allow you to paint various details of clothing, home decoration, silk paintings even to those who have never before been engaged in the design of fabrics.

Hot batik is a fascinating, but also very time-consuming task. It is in this technique of artistic painting of fabric that the opportunity to make a variety of textures that give an absolutely unexpected result opens up completely to you. Therefore, it is advisable to think in advance of a graphic, tone and color scheme on the sketch before you begin work. All possible shortcomings are better corrected on paper than on silk, where it is much more difficult to do.
An apparatus for preparing hot wax, without which it is impossible to imagine this technique, is quite simple to make at home.
I offer you two options.
one). It is necessary to take a tin can, in which a cartridge with a light bulb will be placed, and make small holes in it, thereby protecting the can from overheating. On it you put a jar of a larger diameter, in which the wax will be.
2). For this option, you will also need two banks with different diameters. In the larger one, pour water and lower the boiler into it, and put the second can with wax in the first, keep in mind that it should be higher than the first.
For painting, round and flat brushes of different sizes are used, made of various materials: column, bristles or synthetics. As a hot wax, it is better to use paraffin candles, only they should be white, without flavors and fillers. Hot wax can be applied with different tools: brushes of various sizes, rollers and dies. You can also make “droplets” with a lighted candle. Before applying a layer of wax, make sure that the fabric is dry, since the wax is not applied to a wet surface. A very characteristic effect for hot batik is the crackle technique. To do this, fill with wax the areas where the craquelure will be. Then remove the fabric from the stretcher and “break” the wax with sudden movements. After that, pull the material back onto the subframe and paint over the cracks with a darker or contrasting color. “Krakle” is usually the final stage. It remains only to remove the wax from the fabric. To remove wax, you need to iron the material through several layers of the newspaper until it disappears completely. Good luck!