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Master block carvers, who have been doing this for many years, carve these blocks. These blocks are carved by a chisel and wooden hammer to form a design pattern.
There are a couple of block printing techniques but the one that we work with is called Dabu. Dabu is a mud resist made by mixing together fuller’s earth, gum and few other natural ingredients. It is mixed into a paste not by hand nor by machine, but by foot, just like grapes were crushed to make wine in the yesteryears!
Once this paste is ready, the fabric is printed with a block using that resist. The areas that are stamped resist any dye that the fabric is dipped in.
Sun is crucial to this process. At every step the fabrics have to dry in the open fields under the sun.
Did you know, that most of this work comes to almost a stand still in the Monsoon seasons of July and August?!
After the fabric has been printed, it gets dyed. We work with dyes that are made with natural materials found in our surroundings, such as flowers, leaves, spices and various other natural metals! Below is an indigo vat that has been going on for several years!
After dyeing, the fabrics get washed by hand.
More so than not, block printing is a multiple step process where the fabric gets re-printed, re-dyed to bring out the designs we want.
And that sums up the process of block printing! Of course we stumble upon lot of problems as the color didn't come up right, or the print got messed up while printing or dyeing - but that's life - and we take it as it comes!