6th February: I was honestly so very excited to do this. Growing up in Malaysia, everyone had to have done Batik at least once in their life. As a child, I did it quite a few times. To be able to do this in class meant a lot to me as it brought back memories.
I first nailed thumbtacks into the wooden frame with the cloth between it to straighten the cloth which was quite simple to do as my wooden frame had been used quite a few times and the wood was getting soft. I then used the Tjanting, a tool to scoop up the melted wax that was in liquid form and let the wax drip from the hole and drew the outline with it. I used a folded paper towel to block the wax from dripping down everywhere. Whenever my wax started to cool, I poured it back into the heating pot and scooped up warmer wax to continue doing my work with ease. I eventually finished outlining and moved onto my painting.
I filled it in with many different colours because Batik is supposed to be colourful. To keep it traditional, I filled up my primary resources with various colours. The only thing that I do not like about my batik is that my wax did not manage to prevent the colours from transferring to the other side. The cause of this was because there was not enough wax to resist the batik paint. The cause of this was because the wax was not hot enough to seep through the cloth but it doesn’t seem too bad.
I then went to the iron to melt the wax away. The newsprint paper is sandwiched between the cloth after being blow dried carefully. The heat from the iron melted into newsprint paper. I did this twice the thoroughly remove the wax and I was done.
Overall, it brought back memories as it reminded me of my childhood which was great but analysing it critically, I wish I could have drawn it better with the Tjanting. I liked the colours I used. I will go back to Malaysia and extensively learn about this, going to the Batik Museum, gathering inspiration from it and practice using the Tjanting and making my hand more stable.
YiLinKohCSVPA 