Bagru dabu-printed cloth
the object
Printed with carved wooden blocks, one colour at a time, aligned by eye against a printed guide mark at the selvedge. A length this size is several hundred impressions.
The resist is mud. Where it sat, the cloth stayed pale; where it cracked while drying, indigo got underneath and left a fine vein. That veining is how you tell dabu from a wax resist.
Indigo and pomegranate, sun-dried between stages. It will lighten a little over the first few washes and then stay where it lands.
- Dimensions
- 2400 × 1100 mm as a length. Cut and hemmed to order.
- Material
- Cotton, mud resist, indigo, pomegranate
- Finish
- Sun-dried at every stage. The faint veining in the pale areas is the resist, and is the signature of the method.
- Variation
- The mud cracks differently on every metre of cloth, so the veining is never the same twice.
- Lead time
- Six weeks.
the tradition
Bagru hand block printing, dabu resist
Bagru
The mud cracks as it dries, and the dye enters the cracks.
Dabu is a paste of clay, gum and wheat chaff, printed onto the cloth with a carved block to keep the dye out. It is dusted with sawdust so it will not smudge, dried in the sun, and only then does the cloth go into indigo.
As the mud dries it cracks. Dye gets into the cracks. The faint veining left in every pale area is that happening, and printers do not try to prevent it. A dabu cloth without veining has usually been resisted with wax or with a synthetic paste instead.
the maker
Ramesh
Printer, 28 years, Bagru.
He prints the resist twice for a deeper ground, which costs him a day and a half per length.
This object is not yet for sale.
Join the list and we will write when the first collection opens. Once, and about that.
from the same shelf
