composition tools and techniques

Hello guys,

As most of you know that I have already mentioned in my previous post, what I m going to talk about in this blog post, but for those who don’t know, I m going to talk about composition tools and techniques used in kalamkari.

So, the materials and techniques for making the two types of kalamkaris are similar. In Srikalahasti, the cotton cloth is first washed with water thoroughly to remove starch and other oily substances. After drying, the cloth is dipped into buffalo milk mixed with myrobalan fruit dust, and then, after squeezing out the excess solution, it is dried again. Next, the initial drawing is done with charcoal pencil made from burnt twigs of the tamarind tree. For coloring, a pen made of bamboo is used. One side of the bamboo stick is carved to get a sharp tip. Near this tip, a piece of cotton cloth is wrapped and then tied with thread. The solution for drawing the outline is locally called “kasim” and is made by adding 500 grams of sugarcane jaggery, 100 grams of palm jaggery and 1 kilogram of rusted iron into 10 liters of water. The solution is kept for around twenty one days before it is used. The bamboo pen is dipped into kasim, gently squeezed to release the liquid and then used for drawing. A piece of cotton is kept at hand to blot the excessive ink from the surface. In the area that has to be painted red, initially a solution of alum water is applied with a blunt pen.
Generally, the background of these textiles is painted red. To get maroon, instead of red, a small amount of kasim is added to this solution. Separately, alizarin solution is prepared using 50 grams of alizarin diluted into water (for around 6 meters of cloth) and then added to around 15 liters of boiling water. The cloth, drawn with kasim and alum solution is dipped into the hot water and kept for around 45 minutes. The textiles are then washed in the river Swarnamukhi which is nearby. The river is shallow which makes it suitable for washing. After the process, the cloth is dried and again dipped into buffalo milk. For yellow, the dust of ripe myrobalan fruit, mixed with alum solution is used. For orange, chvalkodi and alizarin is mixed with the myrobalan-alum mixture. For blue, indigo is used. After this, the cloth is washed again in water before it is finally ready for use.

In Machilipatnam, the washing of the cotton fabrics is done at the Kalia Canal. Then a process similar to the one described above is used. In Machilipatnam, for the block printed textiles, line drawings are not necessary. The textiles produced here can be monochromatic or poly-chromatic and for each color, separate blocks are used. The manufacture of these textiles is a collaborative process. The whole unit is divided into several sub-units. The first sub-unit is the block maker’s workshop where the artisans are mostly from the carpenter’s community. For making the blocks, a cross section of teak wood is generally used. Blocks are carved using the relief process, where the positive area, which has the design that will be transferred onto the cloth, rises above the sunken negative area. In the printing sub-unit, the coloring process usually starts with the outlines and moves towards filling-in of the inner portions of the design.
 For poly-chromatic printing, the black and red portions of the design are printed first and then the cloth is washed and boiled. Unlike the process at Srikalahasti, alum solution is not used here for the red color. All the colors are stored in flat rectangular wooden vessels and covered with several layers of cotton cloth or jute.
After printing, the fabrics are dried and taken to the washing sub-unit. This unit is usually open from all four sides and consists of one or more open ovens. These ovens are, till today, fueled with rice husk and wood powder. Big semi-circular vessels made of iron are placed over these ovens for boiling the fabrics. While boiling, leaves from the local forest, known as gaja, are added to the water to fix the colors. After boiling, they are dried and sent for further printing with yellow and blue colors. After this, the fabrics are washed again in boiling water. Finally the finishing touches are given, which sometimes includes embellishment by hand

That’s all for composition tools and technique of kalamkari. Stay tuned for more information about kalamkari.