Art Quill Studio
The Education Division of Art Quill & Co. Pty. Ltd.
Art Quill Studio Director: Marie-Therese Wisniowski.
This site will feature a new post each week centred on the following categories: ArtCloth, Art Glossaries, Fiber Arts, Prints on Paper, Textile Arts, Wearable Arts, and include posts from our publishing house that are pertinent to each of these categories.
Stencilled Starch-Resist [1] One of the many ways of applying a dye-resisting agent to fabric is by coating the surface of a cotton cloth with a flour paste and then immersing it in a cold water dye such as indigo. Noted for their arts, the Yoruba people of South-West Nigeria are not only some of Africa's most versatile weavers, but are also unsurpassed as indigo dyers. While much of the weaving profession is carried out by men, indigo-dyeing - along with hand-drawn starch-resist, which has always been a female occupation.
Stencils were first cut from the lead lining of tea and cigar boxes in the early 20th century at the town of Abeokuta but, for most of the 20th century, 30 x 20.3 cm (11 x 8 inches) panels of zinc have been used, with the required pattern chiselled into them. Until recent times, the application of the cassava starch-resist through stencils was exclusively a male occupation. Nowadays, many roles have changed. For instance, in Oshogbo, one of the last places for dyeing in natural indigo, women play a major part in the manufacture of these cloths, which are known, like their hand-drawn cousins, as adire eleko.
Starch is only applied to one side of the cloth. The starch-resist technique works on the same principle as wax batik. It is well-suited to indigo dyeing, in that the temperature of the vat never rises high enough to dissolve the starch. The cloth to be stencilled, which may be plain white or patterned mill cloth, is nailed flat to a table. The Zinc stencil is placed firmly on top of the cloth and cassava or cornflower starch mixed with alum (the paste is known as lafun is applied and pressed into the cloth with a metal spatula. Any surplus is scraped off and retained. Most designs require a series of stencils, which are used in the order of their importance to the overall design. Repeated immersion in the indigo dye-bath is required. Great care is taken not to crack the resist while handling it during this process. When the dyeing is completed, the lafun is scraped off the cloth, which is then hung out to dry. The resulting cloth, if a white base is used, therefore has a light-blue design on a very dark-blue ground. One of the favourite central motifs shows King George V and Queen Mary upon the occasion of their Silver Jubilee in 1935.
Adire eleko indigo-dyed woman's wrap with stencilled Yoruba proverb.
A 1970s Nigerian market scene. The woman wears an adire wrap.
Zinc adire eleko stencils, Oshogbo.
Yoruba, stencilled adire eleko showing King George V and Queen Mary in 1935, their Silver Jubilee year. Cassava starch has been stencilled on to mill-patterned cloth. The base pattern is revealed where the starch has been applied.
Adire eleko indigo-dyed woman's wrap with a lizard or terrapin stencilled motif.
Reference: [1] J. Gillow, African Textiles, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London (2003).
A History of Javanese Batik - Hindu Influence [1] The word 'batik' is thought to be derived from the name of the still older drip technique. The stem of the word 'tik' means 'drop' or 'spot.' Batik as a written word dates back to sources from the 16th century.
The history of Indonesian batik can be traced relatively clearly, especially Javanese batik, which is the most important. Batiks were also worked on Sulawesi (Celebes), throughout the Torajas, in Sumatra in the cities of Jambi and Palembang and on Madura. While the bulk of Sumatra and Madura batik is closely related to Javanese, whereas that of Torajas is not related to Javanese.
Map of South-East Asia.
The Toraja make their own textiles, and hand-woven cloths are an essential part of their traditions. Sometimes local designs are produced on imported cotton fabric. Different types of textiles are used in various rituals. Family groups have sets of sacred cloths, such as scarfs and headdresses as well as wall hangings displayed at ceremonies. Some of the distinct types include sekomandi, sarita, pori lonjong and poté. The traditional symbolic motifs have the wax resist applied by a primitive bamboo container. The Torajas bury their dead in such cloths.
The sekomandi signifies the brotherhood of the villagers. The abstract zigzagging pattern represents the human life journey. These cloths are the largest and most valuable ikats of the Toraja. Now very rare, they were woven only in the villages of Ronkong and Kalumpang and traded south to the Sa'dan Toraja. The sekomandi shrouds are handed down within families, and must be kept separate from other personal objects at home, because of their use as a wrapping for corpses. Recently they are also used as wedding gifts and decorations in marriage ceremonies.
A black and white image of the detail from a shroud (cawat cindako) used by the Torajas of Central Sulawesi. Batiked decorative pieces are inserted in red, white and black striped cloth. The traditional symbolic motifs have the wax resist applied by a primitive bamboo container. The Torajas bury their dead in such cloths.
There are two theories about the origin of Javanese batik. According to the Indologist G.P. Rouffaer, its origin lies on the south coast (Coromandel and Malabar coasts) of India. During the early centuries of the Christian era, there was growing contact between South India and the islands of Southeast Asia, both by the way of trading contacts, and perhaps small scale immigration. Some of these migrants settled in Java. Until the 15th century they exercised great influence there. Their Hindu religion and culture became absorbed by the Javanese population. In this way, according to Rouffaer, a batik process known to the immigrants was accepted into Javanese culture. This occurred around 1200 AD, that is, only in a later period of Hindu influence, and apparently coincided with the import of batik materials by sailors and traders from the Coromandel and Malabar coasts.
A black and white image of a contemporary child-carrying cloth from Tonking in Vietnam is decorated with a large inserted batik piece. The upper part is woven and has pompoms, made of wool sewn on it. The Miao tribe carry their children on their backs in these cloths while walking and working. Batiking such decorative pieces and also the pleated skirts is carried out with a triangular waxed pen. in this method the motifs are built up on one side of the cloth using short wax strokes following a strict pattern. The diagonal lines are always drawn in the same direction, from upper left to lower right. The loose, wooden, underlay, as well as the cloth, is turned ninety degrees after each row. Indigo is used exclusively for the dyeing.
Our knowledge of Batik, which presumably has not changed much in centuries has its source in a report by the French Jesuit priest, Coeurdoux (1742). Iron pegs were fixed in a ball of cotton yarn with a bamboo handle. After the cotton was saturated by dipping into a liquid wax, slight pressure was exerted by the fingers so that the wax ran along the pegs onto the material.
Wax drawing pen from the Coromandel coast of India.
In India it was the men who carried out the drawing onto material and who could only execute rough patterns with this instrument used as a pen. For this reason according to Rouffaer, the Javanese developed the canting (tjanting) for their womenfolk, who could draw extemely fine lines and dots using the canting in the batik method.
In his description of the indian wax decoration techniques used in the art book illustrations, A. Loeber Jr., presumed in 1914 that the positive ornamentation with wax onto paper represents the original form of batik and has its origins in Melanesia.
Melanesia.
From Melanesia this technique is thought to have spread through the Malay-Polynesian tribes and was later taken over again by the people of Asia. The negative wax ornamentation technique is thought to have developed from the positive, where the wax itself is used as a means of design. Here the wax application is removed after the dyeing process. This technique in the art of book illustration is then thought to have led to the much more difficult negative title wax ornmentation technique to batik.
On the other hand, J.E. Jasper, who together with Javanese artist Mas Pirngadi wrote a description of the skilled craft of the island, claimed that the origin of Javanese bakit lay in Egypt or Persia. Originating from these countries it became known in Java as a primitive drip-technique with wax or paste, quite a long time before Hindu culture exercised any influence there. According to Jasper, the decorations and symbolism of the batik motifs were then fully developed by the Hindus. This development took place in palaces of the Hindu or Buddist rulers who reigned from the 7th century A.D. over several kingdoms on Central Java. These residences were the centres for a variety of skills, among them the time-consuming batik process. Servants were called upon to help with the dyeing. In later periods they were charged with the application of the wax. They passed on their acquired skills and knowledge to the village people, so that in time the skills of the court became the craft of the people.
Mengenal Mas Pirngadi, Asisten J.E. Jasper dari Purbalingga (Museum National, Indonesia).
Reference: [1] M. Spée, Traditional and Modern Batik, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst (1982).
Retract and Extend [1] When the waist had to be emphasized once again in the 1830s and the ideal body looked like an hourglass, stays returned, this time in the form of a corset. This differed from stays in the way it separated the breasts. More and more women were able to wear corsets thanks to more modern and cheaper manufacturing methods. The hourglass shape also meant that the volume of the skirt grew, with a growing number of petticoats under it. The resulting weight exerted pressure on the hips and was a strain on the back.
It was therefore a relief when the crinoline came in the 1850s. Narrow steel hoops held together by vertical cotton tapes held the skirt out. The crinoline could also be folded up. It saved meters of materials for petticoats, and it became very popular even though it took up a lot of space.
In the 1870s the skirt ceased to be equally wide all round; instead the extension was gathered at the back, with a heavy emphasis on the bottom, which protruded with the aid of the bustle, a frame attached to the waist, which held the shape of the skirt outwards and upwards. Frames like these in the form of cloth-covered hoops (such as panniers) had also been used in the eighteenth-century, with one on each hip, to give the skirt greater width.
Panniers to give the skirt greater width.
Corset from the late nineteenth century.
The same design for panniers was used for sleeve pads of the 1830s, which supported leg-of-mutton sleeves that were in fashion at the time.
Sleeve pads.
Extremely wide skirts could be obtained using hooped petticoats, but these needed so much cloth they were banned.
Princess Pauline de Waldeck at Pyrmont wearing a bustle-dress.
Photograph courtesy of Gösta Florman, Stockholm.
A bustle from an inside view.
A bustle from an outside view.
Woman in a crinoline dress.
Photograph courtesy of W.A. Eurenius & P.L. Quist (Stockholm).
Reference: [1] 'Power of Fashion - 300 years of Clothing,' B. Eldvik, Catalogue for the exhibition, opened at Nordiska Museet (February, 2010).
There have been another one hundred and thirteen posts in a previous Art Resource series that have focused on the following topics:
(i) Units used in dyeing and printing of fabrics;
(ii) Occupational, health & safety issues in an art studio;
(iii) Color theories and color schemes;
(iv) Optical properties of fiber materials;
(v) General properties of fiber polymers and fibers - Part I to Part V;
(vi) Protein fibers;
(vii) Natural and man-made cellulosic fibers;
(viii) Fiber blends and melt spun fibers;
(ix) Fabric construction;
(x) Techniques and woven fibers;
(xi) Basic and figured weaves;
(xii) Pile, woven and knot pile fabrics;
(xiii) Durable press and wash-and-wear finishes;
(xvi) Classification of dyes and dye blends;
(xv) The general theory of printing.
If you find any post on this blog site useful, you can save it or copy and paste it into your own "Word" document for your future reference. For example, Safari allows you to save a post (e.g. click on "File", click on "Print" and release, click on "PDF" and then click on "Save As" and release - and a PDF should appear where you have stored it). Safari also allows you to mail a post to a friend (click on "File", and then point cursor to "Mail Contents On This Page" and release). Either way, this or other posts on this site may be a useful Art Resource for you.
The new Art Resource series will be the first post in each calendar month. Remember - these Art Resource posts span information that will be useful for a home hobbyist to that required by a final year University Fine-Art student and so undoubtedly, some parts of any Art Resource post may appear far too technical for your needs (skip those mind boggling parts) and in other parts, it may be too simplistic with respect to your level of knowledge (ditto the skip). The trade-off between these two extremes will mean that Art Resource posts will be hopefully useful in parts to most, but unfortunately may not be satisfying to all!
Yellow Pigments - Part I [1] Chrome yellows and oranges are perfectly replaced by the cadmiums for all artists' purposes. Formerly there was some doubt as to the light-proof qualities of some cadmium shades, especially the palest yellows, but all modern cadmium-barium yellows are of equal permanence under severe accelerated test conditions and are entirely suitable for permanent artistic painting. They have less tinctorial power that all the other pure sulphide yellows possess, but they are acceptably strong and compare favourably with the average artists' color in this respect. Most specimens are finely divided and soft, and work well in oil.
JMB Cadmium Pigments.
The term cadmium lithopone does not mean that the color has any of the undesirable features of lithopone white, but merely refers to its method of manufacture in order to distinguish it from pure sulphide pigments.
Professional manufacture of crystalline powder white 28%/30% lithopone pigment for paint.
Cobalt yellow (aureolin), sometimes toned with another color, will replace the obsolete transparent yellows - gamboge, Indian yellow etc.
Color Spotlight: Aureolin.
It is not used in opaque or body-color painting, because its mass tone is a dull and undistinguished mustard hue that can be easily duplicated with less expensive pigments, but it is invaluable for transparent glazes and for precise matching of delicate or very pale colors and off-whites. Cobalt yellow is an extremely rapid drier in oil, hence one should guard against waste by not putting too much on the palette.
Hansa yellow, a modern synthetic organic pigment, creates brilliant effects alone or in mixtures, quite different from the more golden tones that cobalt yellow produces.
Hansa Yellow.
Mars yellow can serve as a starting point to duplicate most of the ochres and raw siennas if desired, but it should be considered as an addition to this family of colors rather than a substitute for any of them.
The use of the European term, transparent gold ochre, by some makers of oil colors to describe an ochre which contains a large percentage of transparent material is unfortunate, as the term, golden ochre, has long been employed in the English and American color trade to describe an inferior product containing chrome yellow.
Analogous Color Palette - Part I.
Analogous Color Palette - Part II.
The best transparent ochre is refined from a rather scarce native ore which contains a smaller percentage of iron than the average; other grades (which are perhaps just as desirable) may be made by mixing alumina hydrate with a deep toned native ochre. The color is a useful one and it is doubtful whether its great transparency and high inert pigment content will promote change in tone by revealing the yellowing of oil, as its hue is very close to that of a rather deep-colored oil. Because of the industrial unimportance and limited production of this native transparent ochre, the material sold as a dry color is likely to be the chrome mixture and therefore should be purchased from only the most reliable sources.
Gold native ochre oil.
Reference: [1] The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques, R. Mayer (ed. E. Smith) 4th Edition, Faber and Faber, London (1981).
Preamble This blogspot exhibits many of my students outputs from a variety of workshops. There are one, two and five day workshops as well as workshops that have a different focus. Nevertheless, it always surprises me how much I learn from my students and how enthusiastic they are to learn and so for your convenience, I have listed the workshop posts below.
Introduction The two day workshop - ‘Image Dreamings: Basic Silk Screen Printing on Cloth’ - was organized by Amanda Donohue, the workshop co-ordinator for the Newcastle Printmakers Workshop Inc., Adamstown, Newcastle, Australia. It was held at the Newcastle Printmakers Workshop premises at 27 Popran Road, Adamstown, Newcastle, on the 29th & 30th March 2025. It was an honor to be invited to tutor this workshop to such an enthusiastic and hard-working group of participants.
Newcastle Printmakers Workshop The Newcastle Printmakers Workshop (NPW) is the longest running open access printmaking workshop in Australia. It has a rich history rooted in community art and education, with its core principles being accessibility and skill development for printmakers. Established in 1979 as a non-profit organization, the workshop has played a vital role in the Newcastle community, fostering creativity through various projects, exhibitions, workshops, and community collaborations including partnerships with various workshops nationally and internationally. Their extensive archives, including documentation of past exhibitions and initiatives, are now housed in the Local History Library [1].
With a large spacious workshop and extensive printing equipment, members of the NPW work in all areas of print media and techniques. As part of its education program, the NPW offers numerous workshops by experienced tutors, which are designed to enhance members' printmaking skills, solidifying their commitment to skill development within their members’ artistic practice. The NPW also introduce printmaking to the general public via events such as Print Day which is celebrated on the first Saturday in May each year.
For further information about the Newcastle Printmakers Workshop, please visit their website by clicking on the following link - Newcastle Printmakers.
Two-Day Workshop Synopsis - Image Dreamings: Basic Silk Screen Printing on Cloth workshop A two-day workshop where participants learnt how to create unique and personalized printed imagery using the very versatile silk screen. On the first day of the workshop, participants learnt the basic principles of silk screen printing and were introduced to techniques such as ombre printing, created a temporary stencil, printed positive & negative images and created a two-colour printed image using fabric paints on cloth. On the second day of the workshop, participants were introduced to direct and indirect stencil methodologies and explored printing with basic everyday media such as masking tape, and talcum powder to create exciting improvisational and textured imagery. No prior experience using a silk screen was needed for this class.
Group photograph of workshop attendees.
From Left to Right: Josephine Bateman, Jann Barton, Mardi Ryan, Alison Winn, Wendy Nutt, and Jennifer Wood.
Below are some outputs of the participants work that was created during the workshop.
Adire eleko indigo-dyed woman's wrap with stencilled Yoruba proverb.
A 1970s Nigerian market scene. The woman wears an adire wrap.
Zinc adire eleko stencils, Oshogbo.
Yoruba, stencilled adire eleko showing King George V and Queen Mary in 1935, their Silver Jubilee year. Cassava starch has been stencilled on to mill-patterned cloth. The base pattern is revealed where the starch has been applied.
Adire eleko indigo-dyed woman's wrap with a lizard or terrapin stencilled motif.
