Fabric Painting – History in Brief

From the time man kind have started gaining knowledge of the civilization and entered in the era where the rationality was getting developed, human have started to draw and paint wherever they could. This occurred in walls, stones, papers and just anywhere in forms of portraits and painting to keep record of the events taking place during those times. It has helped a lot in recollecting and reconstructing the history that we are aware of now.

 

Fabric painting gradually evolved from this art and love for painting of human kinds and with time became popular among the people. It helped to decorate and make the clothes they wear to look more fancy and attractive. The surroundings got a new look through this innovation that took place in the art of painting and drawing genre.

 

The era of fabric painting dates back to around 3000 B.C. when the practice of block printing was exercised extensively in Asia. Painting on fabric was done to make clothing material as well as solid materials look much more ornate and this form was even used on vases and pillars.

 

However, before the whole world could take over the form of fabric painting and perfect it, themselves, the art and craftsmen from China and Japan introduced the innovative style in this form by bringing in the utilization of stencils and resist technique never used before elsewhere. In this procedure one needs to put pigment on one side of the material and put pressure on other sides so that the design where the pigment is put gets imprinted on the fabric or the material using the pigment and becomes part of the texture.

 

There are many forms of painting on fabric which has evolved with time and these styles used for various purposes in various materials but very few of the styles which are most popular are batik methods and tie-dye methods.

 

Batik is the art form of painting which has channeled from fabric painting and the origination of the name is from Javanese language. The concept here is to bring dye and wax together and by doing this and creating wonderful and beautiful designs. This form has gained high popularity and has reached higher level of limits and has been revived completely.

 

Another form of fabric painting is the tie dye method and in this method the fabric which needs to be painted is tied (fraction of the fabric) and then let to drown inside the dye. We will notice after taking the material out that only the portion which was left untied has been dyed while the portion which was tied has remained the same as before. This gives birth to new design which is very attractive and beautiful as well.

 

These days, painting on fabric is done exclusively for the commercial use when people are using this form to give exquisite beauty to their cloths collection in their boutiques.  This form also has an advantage as the colour used during block printing does not fade away easily and remains as it is for long time, wash after wash.