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Kalamkari Process

Block printing for black color and printing of Alum for red colors as a Mordant` dyeing with red coloring material and boiling for red color, painting with brush for yellow color on white or grey ground are the prevailing techniques of machilipatnam kalamkari.

Printing Blocks

The blocks are made by carving various designs on piece of teak wood. The designs are carved by small tools by block makers who re specially trained for it.

The Brush Or Pen

The brush is devised by sharpening a bamboo piece to taper to a point like a skewer, which is split at the point for about an inch. A sponge made of rag, hair or wool is ties an inch below the point in the shape of ball and the fingers manipulate this ball soaked in the required color. The flow is free and easy leaves no smudge.

Process

Bleaching Of Cloth

The cloth is soaked in buffalo or cow dung solution an squeezed a little and kept wet overnight till next morning washed in flowing water and spread over water weeded. Which is supposed to give brightness and polish? This process goes on for a week till the cloth is fully bleached.

Applications Of Myrobalam

The cloth thus bleached is then soaked in myrobalam solution. After the myrobalam solution is evenly dyed all over, the cloth is taken out and dried in hot sun light. The application of myrobalam will help the process of block printing with kasim (iron acetate) to develop black color.

Block Printing

First the outline of the designs will be printed on the cloth by using the wooden block for black color with kasim (iron acetate), karam (alum) for red as a mordant.

Washing

After block printing with kasim and karam, the clothes are kept for 2 to 3 days. They are then washed in flowing water to remove the gum and unfix excess alum.

Dyeing

The colouring materials madder root and jajaku leaves are mixed with water and boiled. Into this the above mentioned cloth is put and worked for 1 to 11/2 hours and then squeezed and washed in flowing water, so that red and black colors are made permanent.

Bleaching

The cloth should be bleached again as described in process with buffalo or cow dung solution. The printed with karam (alum) and (kasim iron acetable) retain the red and black color while the rest of the cloth is rendered white.

Starching

To facilitate the yellow painting on it, the cloth is made stiff by treating it in starch solution (boiled rice water). Fresh buffalo milk is also added to the starch solution to prevent colors from running and also to give a whiter and leathery surface for the cloth for painting.

Application Of Yellow Colour

On the above treated cloth, yellow color is applied by brush wherever necessary the yellow color is prepared from the myrobalam flowers. The yellow color will be applied by using pens made of detepalm sticks.

Application Of Alum

After completing painting of yellow color, the cloth will be treated in alum solution to fix the colors permanent the clothing is now dried up.