Batik

July 20 

Today I did probably one of the coolest things on my trip (in a different way than eating a scorpion or paragliding). And I fell in love with another kind of art. 

We got up and I tried to stomach the Indonesian breakfast- rice, noodles, spicy grilled veggies and chicken wings... Wasn't happening. I had 2 pieces of toast. I still have a really difficult time trying to eat that food in the morning. 

Then, Marion, Marie, Jillienne, Katie, Rowie and I headed out to find Via Via, the travel agency where Panji had booked the Batik for us. We had to go here and pay before we could go to the Batik class. The class cost 130,000 rupiah ($13) and after taking the class I can't believe it didn't cost more. That included all of our supplies, them helping us, etc. that would never happen in the states. I would have had to pay so much for that class. 

When we were at Via Via paying, we were given a business card of the batik place and sent on our way. Marion had the card and did not do the best job ever leading us. We went down the correct street and then came back and walked way past it and ended up finally asking someone and had to go all the way back. I didn't have the card or even see it so I can't say if she led us poorly or not. I was kind of annoyed, not at her, but just in general, that we didn't know where to go or how to get there. 

Then, we found more signs that pointed down the road for a batik place. The neighborhood we had turned off into was very nice, clean, and cute. It was an area with more money as well. The signage for how to get to the batik place was not strategically placed. Luckily, someone showed us where to go. The lady was waiting outside for us. 

The whole process of batik was actually very confusing. We had no idea what we were doing and it was really never explained to us. They laid out a bunch of designs for us to trace or said we could draw our own. I had an idea in my head that I wanted to do a human eye with a blue sky and white fluffy cloud background with the pupil of the eye containing a lotus flower. I felt like that represented my trip rather well. The lady didn't think it was a good idea to do this my first time. I didn't understand why so she took me outside and started having me try the wax process. This was really difficult. You can only go from left to right so you have to constantly turn the canvas for drawing the lines. For circles you have to make and join 2 half circles. You also have to make sure you press down enough so the wax bleeds through to the back but you also don't want to drop wax out of the little tool which has an open top. And, on top of all of that, if you want something to be white, it has to be covered in wax. That meant a lot of my canvas would be white and at that point I understood what she meant. I conceded and decided for my first batik painting to just trace an already made design. 

After I traced the design, I went to the wax station and covered all the lines in wax. You want all the lines to be closed so that when you add the paint it stays in the area you want it to be in without running into another part. It takes a long time. You have to draw like 3 lines and then get new wax. Once I got the hang of it I started adding my own designs and little touches to the original traced drawing.

For my name I tried to do a heart with RT in it and the wax ran. So, I ended up writing RLT along the outside of the heart. I asked if they could remove the letters from the heart and they took the r off but not the t. Oh well. After we did the wax they removed the parts where out wax dropped or ran. I don't know exactly how they did this either.

Then, after they made sure the wax could be seen on both sides and that all the lines were joined, I was able to paint. It was like watercolor paint so it spread out when you touched it to the fabric. We didn't use paint brushes (except Katie because it was only 3 colors) but q-tips. And if you wanted it even lighter colored, you put water on the cloth before you added the paint. I painted me painting (all but the background) and then I had to let it dry in the sun. 

After it was dry, I had to cover all the parts with color in wax. I literally just painted over it. It has to be thick so you really do a few strokes and then dip it in the wax again. 

After I painted it with wax, they covered it in parafin for me. This is a clear gel. (Or maybe this was before I painted it with wax... I can't remember). Then it dried. 

Once it was dry, they gave me some powder to sprinkle over the background and it was orange and red. This would sort of tye dye the background. So I sprinkled the colors on and then they used a liquid blue and poured it over it. That then changed the background that wasn't already covered in the powder to blue. It was pretty cool. The background came out a lot different than I thought it would. I wanted it to be more red and it was more blue, but it still looks good.

There were multiple times throughout the process where they washed the painting. Washed wax off, parafin off, other things off. I don't know. They also boiled it to remove all the wax from the cloth. 

I really, really, really loved doing this. It was so cool and such a different type of art than I am used to. I hope I can figure out how to do it at home. I don't think it will be easy or cheap though so we shall see. Dad said it was originally invented in Japan so maybe when I go to Japan one say I can do a longer period of time for batik making.

True batiks are 2 sided. If it is only 1 sided it is just a print. 

Literally, it was a do what you want but I'm only going to tell you what you're doing when it is time to do it. So don't get your hopes up about me being able to create any of this at home. I can't even tell you everything I used or did to create the one I made!

It was a rather exhausting process. We worked on our batiks from 9:30am to 3pm! And that was only a small one. Some take 4 days or a month to create! There also isn't much room for mistakes which normally I would hate because im such a perfectionist, but for this I kind of liked it. 

We all ha very different but equally interesting batiks at the end. And, we all went through completely different processes to get our final painting. I can't even imagine how many different techniques and things there are in batik. It is very complicated. Probably why I'm drawn to it... Naturally.

We all got done at different times and we met at Easy Goin' for lunch. I had a chicken and cheese quesadilla and 2 bottles of water. I was so thirsty. I felt like an ass though because when the waiter brought my water he asked if I was thirsty and I told him very! Then he said, "Me too, I'm fasting." I was like ok, well now I feel like an ass. But actually I shouldn't since its his choice to work in a restaurant during Ramadan. 

Ramadan has actually been frustrating in Yogyakarta. We wanted to do a cooking class but the night we could the staff wasn't available (but they were other days so maybe that wasn't because of Ramadan). We wanted to do a silver jewelry making class but we couldn't do that because it was only offered at 9am or 5pm and the 5pm class was cancelled because of Ramadan. We couldn't do 9am because that's when the Batik class was. They would do one at 1pm but not 2pm. Although its good we didn't do either since we were at batik until 3pm!

Yogyakarta doesn't have too much to do. That's why I was bummed we could do the classes. I am glad we did the batik one though because that was very different from my other activities so far on this trip and also was very unique to Indonesia I think. There is a royal palace and water palace but I looked them up online and they didn't seem too amazing. Nadya went and said it wasn't great.

That afternoon Katie and Marion got massages at a spa and Jillienne and I chilled out at the hotel. 

Around 7pm a bunch of people went to dinner. Jillienne and I decided to stay back because we needed a break from everyone. We ended up going out for Italian again. When you find good western food you gotta capitalize on that shit haha. David and Marie ate there all 3 days! This time I got a pesto pizza with chicken and garlic. Yum yum! 

Good news. My card arrived in Bali so ill get that for sure when we arrive. I was up late though because I was trying to get the bank to allow dad to take out money to pay for my school tuition from my account. Banks are annoying. There's too much you have to fax this or allow this and it's too many rules and too hard to deal with while abroad. Although, Charles schwab has been pretty amazing with my debit card situation so I can't complain too loudly.