A New Kind Of Batek Making Process – Desa Alam Batek

Batik making is an art where plain linens (cloth, clothing, etc) are turned into lovely pieces of art. Well, not just art but wearable art. This traditional method of designing or printing clothes, fabric, etc. has been around for many years and is popular not just here in Malaysia but other countries as well within the region.

Traditionally the process printing batik usually includes the use of hot wax to draw the outline of the designs. This is either hand drawn where hot wax is drawn onto the fabric using a wax pen or canting tool (also called tjanting), or printed on using metal blocks. The block is dipped into hot wax and then stamped onto the piece of fabric printing the design of the block on it in wax.

The use of heated wax to create outlines.

Next, colours (dye) are added by brush creating a colourful and beautiful (can be in black and white as well) piece of fabric. After this is done the wax together with the extra colours will have to be removed. The wax has to be removed by heat and the extra colours has to be removed by placing the fabric into various buckets of liquid solutions also known as dye bath. After all these things the fabric is then drowned in another solution to lock the colours in. Okay, this is the traditional method of making batik.

Colouring batik by hand.

Cold Waxing

A new method if creating batik is the use of cold wax. This method is much faster removing the need to draw with hot wax or to use metal blocks to create prints on fabric. The process begins with designing the intended designs on computer. It is then printed onto a large piece of paper. The print is then transferred onto a silk screen using a light printing process.

A designer creating designs for a batik print.

The silk screen is then placed on top of the fabric. Cold wax is poured onto the silk screen and then transferred onto the said fabric. It takes less than a minute to silk screen the wax onto an A1 size section of the fabric. It will take merely a couple of minutes to cover say 10 metres of cloth. This method of cold waxing speeds up the process of canting (or tjanting) tremendously; eliminating the need to wait for the wax to heat up, followed by hand drawing or block printing the wax onto the fabric one small section at a time, and waiting for the wax to dry. The colouring process and the rest thereafter are the same.

Using a silk screen to spread wax onto the fabric.

Desa Alam Batek in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia is one of the very few in Malaysia to use this method of printing wax on fabric. This allows them to mass produce things like clothing, handkerchiefs, bandanas, etc. at a much faster speed as compared to those who do it the traditional way.