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.
No comments:
Post a Comment