About batik

Wax, dye and a forest of flowers

Batik is a way of drawing with wax. Whatever the wax covers keeps its colour when the cloth is dyed; the rest takes the dye.

How a batik is made

1
Draw in wax

Hot wax goes onto the cloth along every line of the design. It can be drawn by hand with a canting, a small copper pen with a spout, or pressed on with a metal block.
2
Add the colour

The cloth is dyed, or colour is brushed on between the wax lines. Wax can be added and the cloth dyed again for each new colour.
3
Lift the wax

Last, the wax is boiled away. The lines it covered show pale against the colours around them.

Two ways to lay the wax

By hand

With a canting, every line is drawn one at a time, so no two flowers come out quite the same. The lines can swell, taper and curl.

With a block

A metal block carries a whole motif and is pressed onto the cloth again and again, so the pattern repeats in an even rhythm.

Where the patterns come from

Malaysian batik draws on flowers, leaves and vines. Stay a moment: the buds are opening.

Rafflesia Its biggest kind has the largest single flower on earth, up to a metre across. No leaves, no stem: it lives inside a jungle vine.

Bunga Raya Malaysia's national flower since 1960. Its five petals stand for the five principles of the Rukun Negara.

These four cloths

One was photographed on display at Muzium Rembau in Negeri Sembilan. The other three are batik of Negeri Sembilan, Terengganu and Johor: two seen at the Karnival Komuniti Kraf 2025, and one made for a kaftan.

See the four cloths

Photo credits

Every image on this site is adapted from photographs on Wikimedia Commons: cut out, cropped, toned and set in motion. Adapted images are shared under the same licences as their sources.

Batik Rembau by Zahirulnukman (CC BY 4.0); Negeri Sembilan, Terengganu and Johor by Rulwarih (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Forest Taman Negara, canopy and understory by Vyacheslav Argenberg (CC BY 4.0). Leaves: alocasia by Forest and Kim Starr (CC BY 3.0 US); monstera by Smatu (CC BY-SA 4.0); monstera by Mokkie (CC BY-SA 3.0); fan palm by Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz (CC BY-SA 4.0); banana leaf by George E. Koronaios (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Flowers and animals Rafflesia keithii, bud and flower by Mike Prince (CC BY 2.0); Bunga Raya bud by B.navez (CC BY-SA 3.0) and flower by ChiK (CC BY-SA 4.0); Rajah Brooke's birdwing, Malaysia's national butterfly, specimens by Anaxibia (CC BY-SA 3.0); rhinoceros hornbill in flight by A.Baihaqi (CC BY-SA 4.0).