JADI BATEK . designing - batek-ing

I was very excited to know that we were going to a batek factory , however i had never tried batek-ing in my life, and i had no idea how batek-ing is done.  but i was ready to learn and gain new skills.

However , i did abit of research and wanted to see how these batiks actually look like and how they are done .
I looked into my cultural batik work.  and these are some of the batik work which inspired me.

This is basically african  batik.
since , Africa itself is known for its national parks and wildlife . people do alot of art work related to it .
also the traditional dances using drums is the most popular activity in african culture.

I also watched some videos on youtube which were related to canting and i  found it quite interesting. and i got some tips , so i was prepared for the actual day's activity.  this is the link of one of the videos. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=i8T95YKVac8

YES! WE ARE HERE! 

when we got  to the factory on the day itself,  we were introduced to a person who was handling the batek. we were given  a brief explanation about how to go about and what to do and what not to.   i was already motivated by seeing the amazing work done by these creative and skillful workers. they were passionate about their work, this even made me more excited to look forward for this day.

this was their work , which was hung from the ceiling.  and it looked beautiful .

this worker had just started his work. he was canting the silk. 

Before the batek day , we had to come up with bizzare ideas to make our batek,, this was basically a group assignment ,  and since my group consisted of mixed culture people. we decided to use symbols that represents our cultures. however we had other ideas aswell before coming to conclusion these ideas included,. under water creatures,  retro vintage, superheroes and a few to mention .

so basically that was how each of us decided to do our batek, the peacock represents the indian culture , the koi  represents chinese  culture and lotus is symbol of  faith , also that we wanted to use waves to represent motion .  so basically the peacock feather patterns  are then put up as the  waves. 

combining all three we decided to make it a panaromic view.  

each of us had to work with certain piece of work. i had to work on the peacock. 

actually , this was the best out of all. i love the peacock colours.  the royal colours such as blue , green . it makes it one of a kind.  however we didnt want to use the exact pattern of the peacock feathers so we decided just to have a simple feathery pattern with royal colours to make it look elegant.

I had looked into the colours of peacock feathers as part of my research and also found several patterns.

This is was my part of work .

we first drew with pencil since we are not so used to waxing straight. to make it easier  for us to wax.basically hot wax was used for separation of colours.  it was super hot , and we had to be really careful and cautious while making the outline as it would burn if mishandled. 

after making the outline , we started applying the dye accordingly . there were alot of colours that we could use.  we could also mix water to dilute and give it a wash effect.  

this was the canting used to make the barriers in order to avoid the mixture of colours. 

 the hot wax and canting

 

cups of different colours. 

this is my piece of work. 

i would like to share my other group members work which led to give out an amazing panoramic piece of art work. 

                                             
                                                 The  process of making masterpieces

                                                 
                                                   
                                                   This is my  group . yes ,im the only girl.
                                                   and because of that , i get to pick the peacock :)

                                   apart from working and learning new things , we had fun for sure.

this is towards the completion of our work.  and i was excited to see how it would look like when put together. 

this is my piece of work.  oh! i have my monogram on the top right. :) 

this was the final product obtained from the batek factory . 

this was not it.  to put all 4  batek paintings was even more exciting and awesome, and i must say i have gained alot from this trip and activity , i know how to use hot wax , and im hoping to practise more during my free time . not forgetting minor mistakes made which will be rectified with practise. 

\

this is the panaromic view of our work .

we also tried putting up in different ways on different backgrounds, such as windows and floor.

this was a great work done  by  me , aliff , jun and kush :) 

awesome stuff ! 

paranomic view .

this activity was a great platform to explore , see what are the problems that we faced. how creatively did we solve it . for instance : we had the panaromic view concept, after getting our bateks we realised that we were off alignment , so  we decided to fold our materials to have it all of one size and also have a balanced composition .  

otherwise, this was a great activity , im surely looking forward to  practise more of batek in future. 

*thumbs up*

not to forget to share some of my friends work , as it really inspired me ! 

collage of my friends work:) 

Everyone had their own touch and everyone came out with awesome piece of work ! 

monogram - assignment posters

soo after printing my monogram on several items as seen in my previous post.  we are supposed to make a poster. A2 sized , any material to be used.

Before making a final one,  i tried on several materials.
tried pop art theme aswell . wasnt a bad idea but i thought i could do more.

it came out something like that, this paper is made out of newpapers and leaves mixed. 

quite interesting actually ! 

However i decided to try different designs on mounting board. things needed are posters colours, sponge, plastic to make stencils and  double sided tape.

i wanted to experiment more. 

.

i decided to use multi color theme on a white water colour paper.
with a curvy leafy frame to balance it.

                                            this is was preview of how it would look like.
                                      I had to make stencils for my leafy frame aswell.

i used poster colours and sponge to paint it . 

i used primary and secondary colours.

this is my final piece of work .

                               However i tried  taking pictures of it in different mode. like polarize and negative .
                                    and it looked amazing :)  i loved it .

I also tried printing my monogram on a mounting board with the same colours .  but using a different frame and different colour for it.
this time around , i used a circular frame , curvy .  however the multi colour theme didnt work out well here.  so i used  orange, green and yellow.
Again , i was experimenting .

Rule of third and composition was highly considered.  i was experimenting on what and how would the monogram look the best .

i also learnt that , before finalizing any product . we must experiment and see which one looks the best out of all the good work we do. 

Here i am!woohoooo!

In the making of ...... a  designer. :) yes so thats my monogram printed on several items. 

this activity actually made us create our own monograms that represents us, im hoping to use it in my future designs. (:

im proud of my monogram design . and  i loved this activity !