Unconventional Batik

Assignment 3

For this assignment, we were asked to form a group of 4. So I pair up with Yasmin, Cherry and Mishu. We discussed about the theme we wanted and in the end, When we show to Ms. Lisa our ideas, she absolutely love the lantern idea suggestion, but she said that we can also combine our other ideas together too.

Our ideas:

 I suggested to my group members that we should do scenery and this is what we both agreed on.

 Mountains and Cherry blossom

Cherry blossom tree and pagoda

Lanterns

I've also suggested that rather than doing daytime, maybe we should do night time instead,

Sketches:

In the end, our theme are lanterns with a pagoda and mountains at the background, and also cherry blossom.

Since this is a group work, we were told that the batik is basically A3 size and each one of us has one. Since we are 4 in a group, we have 4 piece of the A3 batik. We decided to do a long horizontal piece. Ms. Lisa also mentions to make sure that our design, even if it is separated, it’ll still looked the nice. She even told us that we can just draw on A4 first and then print it into A3 later. 

After we show Ms. Lisa our sketches, she asked us to extend the tree branches a bit and such, to make it all balanced. 

So, my friend told us to do each design and then let Ms. Lisa choose later and this is what we come up with. Some of our design looked similar. 

In the end, Ms. Lisa choose this.

After that, my group decided to discuss about the colour scheme.

Since one of my friend bring colour pencils that day, we start colouring.

Since we choose a night scenery, Ms. Lisa reminds us that our cherry blossom colour is also different, So, we did a quick research

BATIK TRIP

It took quite a while till we reached the batik place, and when we do, there’s a lot of beautiful batik design inside. There’s huge one hangs on top of the ceiling. 

They show us how batik was made and the process before we start doing our own. What surprise me that they use free hand when drawing out the design. It was amazing. 

After we find a spot to do our work, we start on tracing our design first before canting

This is the canting process,

The wax is hot and we need to keep on refill it again and again. It was tough. 

After that, we started to test out the colours they'd provided for us in the cups.

 We even try to do some gradient effect.

Rather than doing individually, my group did everything at once. Colouring all the sky first, then the trees, the pagoda and others. Some of us in charge of the blending technique and takes turn to hold the cups. It was tiring but we work well together. We also ended up not doing the cherry blossom flowers because none of us are confident enough to draw it. Since it took a while for us to do the canting. 

After we finished, we were told to pack up and go into the bus. The moment I sit down, all my energy drained. I was working on the batik non-stop, while some of my friends did take a break for a while and I’ve been standing the whole time. Not to mention everyone is super hungry at time. The morning bus ride, everyone was so noisy and then, the afternoon bus ride everyone was so quiet. It had been a tiring day. We will get back our batik by next Tuesday.

Presentation day:

During the cut-out and batik presentation, Ms. Lisa asked us where is our cherry blossom flowers. She said we should have told her that day and can ask one of the workers to draw for us. She also did asked is this the first time we work together as a group and does we find the batik-making experience was enjoyable or not. Ms. Lisa also mentions whether we would do batik again or not in the future. 

I think batik is not as easy as it seems and the canting part was the worse for me because it not easy and it was so frustrating when we did a mistake, since we can undo it. However, the colouring part was my favorite. I really do enjoy doing that.