The word "batik" is of Indonesian origin and literally means a drop on cotton. Batik is both a hand-painted fabric and a specific technology for dyeing fabric.
Indonesia is considered the birthplace of batik. In Europe, it appeared and became popular only at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, batik is created not only using the Indonesian technology of dyeing fabric with wax (hot batik), but also using rope and knot technologies, Chinese blue-white and Japanese multicolored silk painting. The world of batik is diverse. This ancient type of folk art is now very popular and occupies a worthy place among the arts and crafts. The technology of creating batik is based on the application of a pattern impervious to paints on the fabric and its subsequent dyeing in a tank or with tampons. To create batik, special equipment is required, which depends on the technique and style in which the fabric will be painted. Each style of painting requires its own materials. The main material for batik is fabric. For novice craftsmen, the choice of fine silk, on which paints are fixed at a high speed, will be ideal. A stretcher is also needed to create batik. The best fit is an adjustable collapsible stretcher with high clamping bars, which will allow you to stretch the fabric evenly along the entire length. To secure the fabric to the stretcher, needles with silk tension hooks or special 3-prong buttons. In the absence of them, you can use ordinary pushpins with a diameter of 12 mm. For painting on fabric, high quality brushes of various sizes and special batik paints are required. You can start with paints in three primary colors - blue, yellow and red, which allow you to create interesting tones. The paints differ in the principle of fixing (steam and iron). For batik to be washed, they must be fixed. Steam curing is suitable for watercolor techniques but is more time consuming. A reserve composition is also required, which is selected depending on the painting technique (hot or cold). A special reserve composition for cold batik can be bought in an art salon or a special store, a reserve for hot batik is easy to prepare at home from paraffin and wax. Before drawing on the fabric, a sketch is made on paper, which is transferred to tracing paper, and then outlined with a composition for copying using a special pin. For mixing colors, a watercolor palette or ordinary saucers are suitable. Need glasses or jars to wash your brushes. It is convenient to remove excess paint with cotton swabs and foam sponges. To speed up the drying process of batik, you will need a hair dryer.
