Tips How to Make Yogyakarta Typical Batik

Batik is a valuable handicraft and it becomes a part of Indonesian culture since a long time ago, especially in Java Island. In former time, lots of Javanese women earned their livings from making Batik. That’s why it was considered as an exclusive job for women at the time.

Yogyakarta has a famous Batik called Giriloyo Batik. The name is derived from a village in southern part of Yogyakarta which is known as a centre of original handwritten batik, the typical Batik of Kraton Mataram (Yogyakarta and surroundings). The Giriloyo Batik has been there for centuries. The Batik has interesting, unique, and classical motives. It is mostly depicting some natural phenomenon together with their lives. Some of the motives also describe surrounding objects in an unique way. Besides, some of them also depict human’s faith and hope to the God, for example the motives of Wahyu Tumurun (a revelation is given), Sido Mukti (happiness), Truntum Sri Kuncoro (giving a lead on a winding life).

Actually, the process of making Batik has similarities. First, batik is made on white cotton fabric called Mori. Batik motives are formed by wax using a little melting pot called Canting. It is mostly used to make fine motives, for bigger motives a paint brush is needed so that the wax seeps into fabric fibers. The fabric that has been painted by wax then being dyed with the desired colors, it is normally started with young colors. The second dying is done for different motives with darker colors. Passing through coloring processes, the painted fabric is put in chemicals to eliminate the wax. However, the Yogyakarta typical Giriloyo batik has a distinctive making process and time consuming. Regardless of the long time needed on the process, the handwritten batik is still preferred because it can maintain the value of traditional art and historical heritage. There are three important things on Batik processes, Molani (making patterns), handwriting, and Mbabar (coloring).

Those three processes are described as follows:

1. Making patterns may be the quickest process; it only takes 3 – 4 hours for the crafters to write the desired patterns using a pencil or charcoal.
2. Next is the handwriting process. It takes the longest time because a traditional batik is handy made. Besides following the patterns using Canting, there is a process called “Ngengrengi-Nyeceki-Nembok” in Javanese term. All the processes are mostly done by different people, and it normally takes a week.
3. The last process is Mbabar (coloring). This process can be done in a day if the batik only uses one color. If we want to make batik motives with some elements and color levels, this process must be done repeatedly, and it can take 2 – 3 days to finish.

Those are some tips on the process of making Yogyakarta typical batik especially Giriloyo Batik. Interested? (Athalia)