Hand-on Batik Workshop

Duration: 4 hours

Batik Art – Background

Batik’ is an ancient craft technique that has become a highly developed decorative art form in South –East Asia. The origin of batik can be traced back to 5^th Century Ad when the village folks in Java applying wax and color to create design for their sarongs.  In Malaysia, Batik has long been part of Malaysian cultural identity.  Today, Malaysian batik was known for the brilliancy of its colours, intrigue design in a contemporary mode of expression.

 

 

Introduction

Batik art as a fine art subject was introduced by Dr. Yuen Chee Ling, the Director of Conservatory of Fine Art since 1989. Ms Yuen Chee Ling, a prolific painter specialized in oil and batik. She had traveled to the various batik centers in Malaysia, Indonesia, Phillipines, Northern Thailand to research on traditional batik and natural dyes. She taught batik in secondary schools during since 1978. batik was introduced as a fine art subject at Conservatory of Fine Art since 1987. She have been invited as the speaker for batik art at international art conferences and has conducted numerous workshops on batik painting locally and abroad including Cultural Foundation Center at Abu Dhabi (1997), Alliance Francaise-Penang (2003), Capital Normal University, Beijing (2005) and Dague Arts Center, Korea (2006) and Palma Arts- Hongkong ( 2007).   

Outlines

This Batik Art Hand-on workshop will begin with an introduction into the background history of batik art. Student will experiment the techniques of batik making using the tjanting. They will learn to create batik art based upon their own choice of motifs – flower, pots , cats , fish etc.

The course will be divided into two parts:

1. Student will experiment the techniques of batik making using the tjanting. Learn how to control the temperature of the hot wax. Practice drawing with tjanting.

Students will learn how to stretch cloth on canvas and to draw onto the cloth.

For the first piece of batik art, student use mono colour and learn how to fix the colour and how to remove the wax.

2. Student continue to learn blending colours. They will learn how to create tonal effect-Lightest to darkest in color. Explore their individual creative ability by choosing their own subject matter.

Disscussion on the various measures and precaution to avoid any  any hazardous situations.