Batik in Bali: my experiences learning batik art in Ubud

Ubud is one of the most popular places to visit in Bali. There, you’ll find a range of activities and attractions, just one of which is batik art classes.

I loved learning about the batik art form and trying it myself. Therefore, I’ve written this article to tell you more about my experience!

What is batik?

You might’ve heard of batik. It’s a style of art producing a distinctive design, which has roots globally, across Asia, Africa, South America and Europe.

Batik is an old art form that uses layers of paint and wax to progressively form a picture. The idea is that you apply wax to the canvas, which preserves the colour (be it the original fabric colour or subsequent layers of paint) beneath. You can then apply progressive layers of wax and paint to produce a more complex picture with darker shades.

Then, at the end, the canvas is dipped into boiling water, removing all those layers of wax to reveal the textured artwork beneath!

Batik is an ingrained part of the culture of Java, the island to the west of Bali. It is so important that it has been added to the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Lou’s friend recommended taking a batik art class in Ubud to us. It sounded so fun that we had to give it a go.

Arriving at the batik art class

In September 2023, Lou and I entered an outdoor courtyard in a traditional house in Ubud. A tree, with pretty pink frangipani flowers, hung over the area, whilst a chicken and her chicks passed through, squawking all the way. A pigeon flew away from a Hindu offering as we entered.

But what attracted my attention most was the paintings hung around the sides of the courtyard, and the art materials in front of us.

Our instructor greeted us. Time to start our batik art class!

Tracing

Our instructor began by passing each of us a canvas, which was fabric attached to a wooden frame. We could then pick what we wanted to paint. There were lots of pre-drawn drawings – birds, flowers, turtles, fishes – which we could trace over, or we could go freestyle and draw whatever we wanted.

How many students go freestyle? “About 10%,” our instructor said. Yep, definitely not for us!

Lou chose a butterfly and I chose a bird, both surrounded by flowers, which we drew onto the canvas with pencil. The instructor said we could make any alterations we wanted, so I made one of the flowers more elaborate, because why not?

Adding the first layer of wax

Once we’d traced out the whole image, a second instructor, a friendly youngish guy, showed us to an area with a metal pot, known as a wajan. It was full of orangey-brown wax. Our instructor told us they ordered the wax in from Java, and that it was brown because of an added tamarind dye.

He showed us how to use a new implement, known as a canting, which was made of metal and could be filled with wax. Its spout looks similar to a fountain pen, but it’s much harder to use. He instructed us to keep it at an angle as we practised how to use it. My first lines were messy, but soon I got the hang of it – enough to begin on the main canvas, at least!

We traced out our lines with wax. As the wax was being applied directly to the white canvas, this was to highlight areas that would stay white.

We also shaded particular areas to give the painting more depth. With a brush dipped in wax, I added shading to the bird’s wings, petals of the flowers and on the leaves. Overall it looked like it would give it a nice effect!

The instructor throughout said, “Don’t worry about any mistakes; we can remove them,” and this was true. After we added the first wax layer, he added hot liquid to any accidental blobs with a spoon, which melted them off.

Painting

With the first wax layer added, it was time to paint.

Not really understanding the colour wheel of Indonesian batik at the time, the instructor gave us a lot of help. In essence, after the first layer of paint is applied, you can only change the colour by adding a pale blue wash. For example, to get green, you have to apply yellow at the first stage. Want purple? You have to apply pink. And so forth.

As I wanted the leaves to be green, I painted them with yellow, with a darker blue-green shade used as an accent. I painted the flowers yellow and pink, and applied blue to the bird and red to its beak. The colours bled in a few places where we removed the accidental blobs, which created an interesting look by the beak, like the bird was wearing badly applied lipstick. However, for the most part the colours didn’t mix, I guess because of the wax separating each section.

To preserve the colours I liked, I applied another layer of wax. This meant that the yellow flower, which I wanted to be yellow, was painted over with wax, and so was the beak. I also added accents in wax in the areas that I wanted to paint over, to produce yellow and blue-green shades in the grass, pale blue accents in the feathers, and pink edges to the flower.

Adding the blue layer

Once I had added a second wax layer, it was time to add a layer of blue paint. The instructor brush the whole canvas with watery blue wash.

It was super impressive to watch this process. Many areas of the canvas changed colour. The middle of the flower turned purple, and the yellow areas turned green!

I repeated this process again a second time to produce multiple levels of colour.

Once I was happy with the colours, it was nearly time to melt off the wax. But first, I needed to add paint to any areas I wanted to be black. There was just one area on my canvas where this applied: the bird’s leg.

To do this, I had to add wax to completely surround the leg.

“To prevent the black paint from spreading,” the instructor said, which was a valid point. The red paint I’d applied to the beak had already leaked quite a bit into the rest of the bird! It would be much worse if the black paint spread.

To make sure it was fully watertight, the instructor painted over the wax on both sides. Then we added the black paint, quite a contrast compared to the pastel shades elsewhere! Fortunately, there was so much wax on the canvas that it didn’t spread.

Melting off the wax

The final step was to melt off the wax layers from the canvas. Before this step, it was hard to tell what the painting would look like, as the orangey brown wax clashes somewhat with all the colours.

The instructor detached the fabric canvas from the wooden frame, then produced a hot pot full of boiling water. He gave me tongs to dunk the fabric in with and swill it around.

When I pulled it out of the bucket, the wax had melted away. The painting was complete!

The final result

I was pretty happy with the painting I produced. Although I don’t have an artistic bone in my body, the careful guidance of the instructors produced something nice. The wax accents worked really well to produce texture on the bird’s wings and flowers and in the grass. I liked the colours I had used too.

Lou’s was pretty as well and the wax produced lovely teardrop shapes on the butterfly’s wings.

As the canvases were wet, we left them at the courtyard and collected them the next day.

Overall, the process took 3 hours. We were so happy with our artwork, and I’m very glad we did it!

The details

We took the Nyoman Warta Batik Class, which is located in Central Ubud and costs Rp 350,000 ($23 / £18) per person. You can find contact details on their website.

For more information on what to do in Ubud, check out my guide to the town!