There is no science (or may be there is) to batik design. Be it contemporary designs or traditional tesselation motifs, there are definitely a lot of thoughts and considerations that goes behind your favorite batik artworks.

The Batik Designers

Batik designers can probably be classified as two categories: the painters and the textile artists.

For batik painters, be it abstract or figurative, imagination is the limit. This group work like a painter, interpreting a particular concept and translating the batik design onto the drawing board in any manner that they please.

For batik textile artists, they might have some restrictions. Commercial artisans may use a tried and tested patterns that they trace from earlier works. These artists need to work within a particular set of specifications. The design depends heavily on the intended purposes of the cloth. For example, a textile meant to be cut for clothing requires a calculated tessellations of patterns. Interior decorations also needs to have pattern size and orientation that suit the space.

Playing with Traditional Batik Design

Regardless of painters or textile designers, novice or professionals, practitioners need to be mindful when working with traditional designs. Designers need to maintain the measurement ratios and color shades when using these motifs. Extra care are required when incorporating batik larangan, forbidden batik motifs. Some are considered sacred that its use are normally reserved for the members of the royalties. While these rules are now relaxed, do treat these motifs with respect.

For transfering the design onto the cloth, designers may sketch batik design directly onto the cloth. Alternatively, artists may trace the design from a piece of paper or previous work onto the medium with soft pencil. In general, one requires the major outline to be indicated by pencils. After which, the batik artist can add on some flairs by incorporating isen (filler motif) during the wax application step.

Batik pattern may look simple but do not be deceived by the detailed thoughts required to execute these masterpieces.

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