[Assignment 3] 'Batik' Execution

We started our journey to the batik factory around 9.30 in the morning. We took a tour bus there armed with our designs, pencils and amateur skills. It was around 45 minutes ride and the tour guide there was nice enough to explain what we would be doing when we get there.

The first process was sketching the designs. We stuck the drawing under the batik with masking tape so we could trace it out without having to redraw.

The people there was nice enough to help us handle and scoop the hot wax. 

Putting the wax using the 'candik' was a tough process. Since the wax was in liquid form, we had to control how much wax we needed for the cloth. If we tipped it too much, a lot will spill out. We also had to change the wax often as it dried out too quickly.

  

We were spoilt for choice. There were so many colors to choose from! Best of all, we can mix the colors to form new ones!

We needed to be very careful because we cannot allow room for mistakes. Once a mistake is made, there is no rectifying it! 

Soon, the place was full of colorful batik, which was at first just an empty piece of cloth.

These were the outcomes:

We dealt with lots of problems along the way. Drawing the designs using wax was not as easy as pencil or pen. It requires a great amount of skills and experience to master it. We learnt that drawing straight lines with wax would never work free handed. And never give tolerance to semi-dry wax, because it would not seep though the other side of the cloth and it would not be able to stop the colors from flooding to the other parts.

Basically, we had a lot of fun. And all the effort and hard work finally paid off.

[Assignment 3] 'Batik' Designing

Each of the member contributed ideas into our design. We first traced it out with pencil, then darken it with black marker. We drew it on A4 size first and then enlarge it into A3. This is because the blank piece of batik provided will be in A3 size.

We even translated our names by using hieroglyphs. We chose a picture each and added our names it to make each piece more individualistic. It was very fun and also made me wonder how difficult it was to draw out letters instead of writing them like what we do today.

[Assignment 3] 'Batik' Research

Batik is a fabric painting process that uses wax to outline the desired shapes and patterns, dyeing it with color and then removing the wax in boiling water.

Source: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62834000/jpg/_62834373_batik.jpg

Source: http://www.malaysia-for.com/images/uploads/batik-creation-malaysia.jpg

For this assignment, we were asked to make our own batik, and I was quite glad it was a group work. We did a bit of research and to also choose a theme for this batik project.

We short listed these:

A maze with cuddly characters

Samurai at war

Pixelated pictures

Bathroom tiles (almost similar to pixels)

But then what caught our eye was this:

It is traditional, yet has this modern twist to it. This depicted a man wearing a traditional Japanese outfit, and at the same time, he's listening to an MP3. We thought it would be fun and humorous to do.

In the end, we chose to draw Egyptian culture, applying modern elements inside it.

[Assignment 2] 'Monograms' Closure

The last day of this assignment has finally come! We arranged all our stuff in a 'booth' fashion. And it actually looked nicer than I expected.

We were asked to present all our six items, the pattern and the poster. I placed them all on top of two pieces of red and beige pillowcase since I didn't have a tablecloth 

Ms. Lisa went around our items, giving comments and feedback along the way. For my presentation, she mentioned that mine was not united - the colors did not go well together. The good thing was that she liked the poster, which I was quite happy about. The challenge was to cut all the stencils, and my favorite part was finishing the whole assignment (very truefor  everyone, even if they did not mention it).

Needless to say, everyone had fun!

I felt a sense of accomplishment after the whole thing. We'd been  busy over this for weeks and it's finally over - with a happy note :)

[Assignment 2] 'Monograms' Poster

The last thing we have to do for Monograms is the poster. At first I thought it would be like a movie poster with the words 'Coming Soon' overhead, but thank god it was much simpler. After dealing with the patterns, this was quite easy to handle.

I cut my name out on a piece of sticker. I love the stickers so much!

Mixing a bit of paint here and there...

The painting process was quite messy since I used an old dish washer sponge. I have to layer newspapers so my table did not get dirty. A lot of tissue were involved too.

I hair-dried the poster to quicken up the drying. Then I peeled the sticker off very slowly.

And the poster is done!

[Assignment 2] 'Monograms' Patterning Attempt 2

 Painting is even nerve wrecking than cutting and pasting. Because once you make a mistake, it will be all gone in a blink of an eye.

Red paint at the ready. It was important to make sure it was not too wet or the colour will penetrate the stickers and onto the paper.

Dipping an old sponge into the paint.

Here goes!

Quickly drying the paint with a hair dryer before it softens the sticker too much.

Sacrificial top left corner.

AACCCKKKK! I'm bleeding!!!

It looked like someone had just spat blood all over it.

I watched a short movie while waiting for the paint to dry. I was super worried and my attention was not fully focused on the show. Then after an hour or so, I decided it was dry enough to peel off.

Deng deng deng ~~~ 

It worked!!!

After painful five hours, I peeled them all off. It was a dull task, as the stickers were quite fragile already and I had to make sure I do it slowly or the stickers will tear into upper and lower half layers.

Cutting them into A3 size, which I had measured beforehand.

Patterning done! :D

It was a unique project for me as I have never done patterning before. It took a lot of time, but it paid off in the end. Even though there are some parts that were smudged, peeled, torn by accident, it was still a good try.

"Have patience with all things, But, first of all with yourself."

- Saint Francis de Sales

[Assignment 2] 'Monograms' Patterning Attempt 1

At first I thought painting monograms on 6 different items was the most taxing thing I could ever have done.

Then when it came to patterning, I thought I'd rather paint on 20 items instead.

We were supposed to pattern our monograms on a piece of A3 paper, then stick it onto a mounting board as a frame. Ms Lisa advised us to print on an A2 first then pick a spot where we think looks better and cut it out in A3 size.

I made the mistake of choosing a size too small for patterning, in the end, I had to make 72 repeating monograms, which took me more than 9 hours to cut them all out.

And that did not include myself making very hilarious and futile techniques in order to ease my progress.

After seeing my classmate's failed attempt to use plastic stenciling, I wasn't sure why I even considered this idea in the first place. Everything smudged like wet chocolate.

Oh, the horrors.

Then I made a stamp out of drawing paper.

I thought I could get off easy by stamping everything in one go. But then when I painted the underside of stamp with color, it dried up before I could even bring it close to the paper In the end, what I got was only a faint impression. Then when I tried adding some water, it smudged again.

 Deciding I could not take it any longer, I started cutting stickers.

72 of them... plus the other wrong ones. Probably about 100 stickers.

I haven't painted it yet, and I am really terrified at the thought of smudging the whole thing again. If that happens, I'm not going to cut another 72 monograms.