26 February 2020 – Eighteen students from Kyoto Sangyo University Japan had a chance to learn how to make Indonesian traditional cloth. They had chance to make batik on their own. This culture class was started at 9 AM and last for 3 hours. They gathered at Lembaga Bahasa Universitas Sanata Dharma (LBUSD) at 8.30 AM and went to a place called Lukman Batik Workshop in Kauman, Yogyakarta. They were accompanied by 2 teachers from LBUSD.

After they arrived, Mbak Tyas, tutor for this batik class, explained some information about batik. She explained short story about the history of batik and how to make batik. After she finished explaining the information about batik, our friends from KSU looked to several pre-designed batik pattern that was prepared by Mbak Tyas. They attentively looked at those batik pattern because they might use those patterns when they draw their own batik pattern. They started making their batik pattern by drawing the sketch of pattern they wanted to make using pencil in the fabric.

After that, they started to applied the wax to the fabric using a tool called canting. The process of nyanting took a while since the wax is hot. They had to carefully apply the wax to the sketch line. After they done nyanting, the colored the fabric by brushing the fabric with their preferred color. It is a bit different with the traditional way of coloring fabric. Then they had to dry the colored fabric before they rinse the wax using hot water. They thought that this batik making was an interesting experience for them. Let’s wait them combining batik with traditional Japanese pattern.

Check out their process below