Javanese Batik

Batik is cloth patterned by drawing hot wax onto fabric, dyeing it, then boiling the wax out, repeated once for every colour. The hand-drawn version, batik tulis, is done with a small copper spouted pen called a canting, and a complex cloth can take one woman several months. Stamped batik cap, made with copper blocks, is faster and cheaper, and printed imitation fills the markets. The court cities of Yogyakarta and Solo work in indigo, brown and cream with patterns once reserved for royalty, while the north coast around Pekalongan and Cirebon absorbed Chinese, Arab and Dutch motifs and uses far more colour. Workshops in all three let you sit down with a canting for an afternoon.

What you actually see

• Batik tulis - hand-drawn work with a canting pen, months of labour in one cloth.
• Batik cap - copper stamps that repeat a pattern quickly and cost far less.
• Court patterns - the browns, indigos and creams of Yogyakarta and Solo.
• Coastal batik - the brighter Chinese and Arab influenced designs of Pekalongan and Cirebon.

When to go

Any time of year. Workshops run daily in Yogyakarta and Solo and take two to four hours, ending with a small piece you dye yourself and carry home once it dries. Pekalongan is a day trip from Semarang and is quieter on weekdays. Go in the morning, before the heat makes wax work unpleasant.

Honest expectations

Most batik sold to visitors is machine printed, not batik at all, and shops will still call it batik. Real batik tulis costs a great deal and looks less crisp than the printed version, which confuses people. Touts outside the Yogyakarta palace steer visitors to galleries that pay them commission. Workshop results are usually clumsy.

Nearby

The Yogyakarta palace and the silver workshops of Kotagede are both in the same city.