Batik: 26th of Dec. '13

The Final Result of My 2m Batik Cloth

What I did today:

• Dyed the cloth to its second color, dark blue
• Took off the wax by boiling the cloth in a large bucket

What I felt and feel:

• Today is my last Batik lesson. I feel proud of myself because I am able to go through the entire course successfully. I didn't get left behind the schedule too much. I can finish the three cloths (handkerchief, tablecloth and 2m cloth) in 16 meetings, which are the number of meetings per course. I am able to persevere through the challenges that this course provides. There are times when I was really bored and stressed out because of the lesson but I finally could overcome those feelings. 
• I feel relieved after today's Batik lesson because I now know that making Batik is hard and energy consuming. So I'm relieved because I will not be doing that every single week again. Even so, I also feel sad because I can't express my creativity through Batik Art anymore. I now have a higher standard for myself when making Batik but I cannot achieve or even try to achieve that standard because I do not have a chance to make Batik anymore. I don't have the materials and tools to make Batik at home.
• After I finished dyeing the cloth, I felt quite disappointed because I wanted navy blue as the second color of the cloth but it turned out that the second color of the cloth will be sky blue.
• During today's lesson, I felt interested because today's activity was something new to me. For the previous cloths, the handkerchief and the tablecloth, they all were dyed by the people who work in the place where I have my Batik lessons in. I didn't get to dye them myself. So today was a pretty interesting day for me. I get to learn new things and I get to stand up, unlike those dreadful days when I had to sit down on a small short chair waxing the cloth one ornament at a time. Even so, I was quite scared during the process of dyeing because we were using HCl solution and HCl solution is dangerous to the skin. It can burn and make your skin itches. Even though I used gloves, I was scared if the solution will accidentally splash to my skin. 
• After finishing the last cloth in the course, the 2m cloth, I feel happy because it doesn't turn out as bad as I expected it to be. The ornaments that I created look pretty even though they can be neater (see pictures below). The lines that I thought would be very thick before the wax was removed turn out to the best sized lines in the entire cloth; they are thick enough to be clearly seen from afar. Even so, I feel like I can improve myself especially in creating the ornament that will be the center of attention, the focus of the cloth. I feel like if the focus of the cloth is prettier then the whole cloth will look a little bit better. I think I can also improve in the choice of color because dark and light blue are very soft while the ornaments used for this Batik cloth are quite edgy (the triangles on the sides of the cloth and the lines striking out of the focus ornament). 

What I learned today:

• My supervisor told me that all of the cloths I made my Batik on are made 100% from cotton. This is an organic material, thus maximizing the result of the Batik's color because organic materials have a high ability of absorbing dyes and can absorb evenly.  
• I learned that there are two types of dyeing in Batik, one that uses Napthol and second that uses Indigosol. Today I used Indigosol. So to dye, there needs to be 3 buckets. The first one is for the normal water, the second one for the warm Indigosol solution, and the third for the cold HCl solution. The cloth will then be dyed into the buckets accordingly to the order that has been just stated before. To make sure that the cloth is fully soaked in the solutions, a bamboo stick is used and placed above the cloth to hold the cloth down in the solutions.

The left part of my 2m Batik cloth

The right part of my 2m Batik cloth

In overall, I feel grateful that I chose Batik as my Creativity activity. I got to experience something new, situations that evoke varying emotions and learn new knowledge about my country's rich culture.