What is a Batik

The History

Batik is the ancient process of waxing and dyeing cloth.

Historically, batik has been around for hundreds of years.  However, over the past several decades the art of batik making has become firmly established in Sri Lanka.

While there are different methods of making batik around the world, in Sri Lanka, batik is made by hand in small quantities and therefore do not get mass produced.

Each Batik painting is exclusively hand made, which makes each painting unique in its colour combination and design. This means that no two paintings could ever be identical.

Batiks incorporate fascinating designs and colours, some traditional others highly contemporary and individual, but they all display a vigorousness of design unique to the island.

The Hand Made Technique

Once the desired pattern is drawn on a plain piece of material, it is dyed with the artist’s choice of colours to be used within the painting. 

The area that does not need be dyed with a specific colour is protected by covering it with wax.  Covering the area with wax, acts like a barrier to the colour dyes and allows a colour to remain while the remaining non-waxed fabric absorbs the dye. 

The process by which batik is produced consists of multiple iterations of waxing and dyeing of the material depending on the number of different colours used on the fabric. 

Once the painting has been completed, the cloth is de-waxed (boiled in hot water to remove the wax), it’s washed with soap, hung to dry and the completed product is ironed to straighten it out.

Batik produces some of the most beautiful art in the world. However, batik artwork is not easy and involves a very lengthy, labour intensive and complex process.

If your cloth painting gets dirty, from time to time - you could hand wash it, hang it to dry and iron it.  This does not damage the product and makes it look like new once again.