We are signed up to an all-day batik course which is run in the losmen’s internet room among the computers and the motorbikes. Our teacher, Giman, is a 49-year-old batik artist who supplements the income from his studio by introducing tourists to the rudiments of this skilful and painstaking art. All the equipment for the course is laid out on piece of lino about 4 foot square and covered in newspaper for good measure – two oil burners warming dishes of wax, a selection of pens with nozzles of varying thicknesses for applying the wax to the fabric and an assortment of brushes. The first step is to trace a design onto a piece of white fabric. I’ve chosen geckos whilst Andy is making a freehand copy of the Spurs emblem. After some rudimentary practice using the pens to apply liquid wax onto fabric without spilling it or creating unsightly blobs, which is much harder than it looks, we begin the task of out-lining our designs. Straight-away we both spill a large scar of wax across them. Fortunately for Andy his mistake comes out looking like ‘go faster’ stripes trailing from the word ‘Spurs’, but mine is more like an alien life-form or a mummified baby and is beyond any attempt to craftily incorporate what will be a large white splodge across the finished piece. Once the outlining is complete the first dyeing takes place followed by blocking all the parts of the design which will be retained in the initial colour. The process in repeated, with another layer of colour and more blocking to achieve until the required combination of colours is achieved. Finally I apply a mix of wax and paraffin to the background, to create a cracked effect when the final colour, black, is applied. The end result is a combination of yellow, orange, red and black and looks quite good for a first attempt, despite the ‘splodge’. Andy’s design is only requires one colour, blue, and he has his finished well before lunch so he starts on another piece, this time the subject is a couple of fish. But very soon a splodge appears which he creatively turns into a squid-like creature along with another couple of splodges to make it look intentional. All the dyeing is done by Giman probably because there are no gloves available to protect our hands and he doesn’t seem to mind having to dip his hands in chlorine at the end of the day. He applies colour washes to Andy’s design rather than block colour and the end result is a mélange of blues, pinks and greens. And the white splodges seem almost part of the intended design.
All-in-all a fun, if rather tiring, day and we came away with two pieces of ‘art’ which might just bear framing when we get home! It also gave us an appreciation of the remarkable skill of the women in the batik factories who chat away while they create intricate patterns with seemingly effortless ease.