Friday, April 17, 2009

Indian Block Printing

We learned about Indian Block printing in a town called, Sanganer, near Jaipur. The block printing man at the company, Sakshi is very famous. His picture is in the "Lonely Planet" travel book!

Block printing is how colourful fabric has been made in India for a very long time. The fabric-makers use cotton and silk. The dye colours they use are natural. Colours are made from things like: buttermilk (yellow), banana leaves (green), sugarcane (red) and metal rust (black).
The artists carve pictures and designs in wooden blocks. There are many different designs! Evan chose 2 elephants, and Audrey chose a peacock. You dip the block in a pad of ink, and then press it on the cloth. You can do this several times with different blocks on the same spot to add differnent colors. The fabric can then be dyed any color as well!
Check out our finished artwork. These are now framed and hanging in our bedroom here in Noida! Pretty cool, huh?

1 comment:

Jennifer Zimmerman said...

I am sure Mazzy and Artie would love to do that, but I think I would like it even more!