Hand-Made Batik:

About Taste and

Creativity

The process of making hand-made Batik or in Indonesian called Batik Tulis must be careful and patient. Finishing step by step process must be in accordance with the procedures. Those steps must be done clearly to have the best result. Not to forget about the taste and creativity to make a fine art.

This article is focused more on tools and materials used. Those are fabric, canting (a tool used to take some hot liquid wax put on the cloth based on a certain pattern), wax, filters, dye, ring, pencil, ruler, cawuk (kind of blunt iron to scrape the wax) and gawangan (to put the batik).

Canting has 3 main parts, i.e. Nyamplung, cucuk, and gagang. Nyamplung is a vessel of the liquid wax which is made of copper. Cucuk is a place where the wax comes out, and Gagang is canting handle which is made of bamboo or wood. Not only to make a pattern, canting has also a philosophy on every part of it. Three main parts of canting have means that is, ‘Gagang’ has a meaning of a strong base of faith to God, then ‘Nyamplung’ has meaning of magnanimity to mend life problem, and ‘Cucuk’ symbolizes a term of talk less, work more. This part has a small size and the users have to be really careful if they want to take the wax out of it. It is important point that those who want to make batik understand the pattern philosophy of batik that they want to make, because it has thousands pattern and meaning.

There are some kinds of canting based on its function:

Canting Reng - is usually used to make the first pattern, called Polan. Canting Reng- has single Cucuk (mouth).

Canting Isen - is used to fill main pattern (polan). It usually has small cucuk either single or double in a range size of (0.2-0.4 mm for small) and (0.5-0.7 mm) as medium.

Canting Blok - is used to fill even cover over the remain pattern. Canting Blok usually has wide-diameter, so the wax may come out more, and it also fasten the filling process. Canting blok has a big size (0.8-1 mm).

There are some canting based on the number of Cucuk (pipe/mouth point):

Canting Cecekan - has single small cucuk. It is used to make a cecek (dot) and also to make a small line.

Canting Loron, comes from Javanese "Loro" which means double. This canting has two eyes of cucuk that shaped line-up, top and bottom. It is used to make double lines. In some regions, canting Loron is used to make margin (pattern in point of fabric).

Canting Telon, comes from Javanese of Telu, which means triple. It has shaped of equilateral triangle. This canting usually is used to make isen.

Canting Prapat comes from Javanese of Papat, which has four cucuk. It used to make isen.

Canting Liman - has 5 cucuk. It has square shaped with one dot in the centre. It is also used as isen.

Canting Byok is canting that has 7 cucuk or more. This canting usually has odd number of cucuk.

Canting Galaran/Renteng usually has even more and more number of cucuk, long shape from up till down, however it is usually less than 6 cucuk.

Color becomes one of magnificence points of Batik as it has a high-aesthetic mean. There are a lot of plants around us that have suitable color pigment used as dye clothes color without harming nature. Such as teak leaves can produce brownish red color on batik, guava leaves produce yellow till brownish color on fabric, indigo/tarum (blue color), secang skin (red color), tea leaves (brown), red onion(brownish pink), andong leaves (green), mangosteen skin (purplish red, red, and blue), and turmeric (yellow).

Wax used to make pattern on fabric is different from any other wax. In principle, this wax will never over-used but it will be taken back after all steps are done instead. Based on sorts and function, batik wax can be divided into some variants, i.e. Klowong wax, tembokan wax, and also Biron wax. Tembokan wax can be used as wall to keep the pattern blocked perfectly. Klowong wax is used to cover the decoration and batik design that can be done by rengreng and nerusi (blocked on two sides of fabric). Pattern that will be blocked by Klowong wax usually isen-isen or decoration and ornaments. Tutupan wax functions to cover specific pattern color to stay on the cloth after dyeing process. This kind of wax usually used for batik with a lot of colors.

Batik is not only process of making patters because it has implied values in every steps. Therefore, batik is one of cultural heritages that is not merely art but also meaningful values. (ITM).