Indian Block Print Fabrics & Art

The art of Indian block print fabric is a labor-intensive, painstaking process that has survived from ancient times to the present because of the beauty of the handmade products. Scraps of cloth found in the ruins of Mohenjo Daro, an ancient city of the Indus Valley Civilization, provide evidence that this type of fabric decoration was practiced in India as long ago as 3000 BCE.

The process takes time, team work and, especially, skill. The three main tools used by fabric printers are wooden blocks, fabric and dye. It can take five carvers up to three days to create an intricate design in a block of teak for use for printing. The printers may use up to 30 blocks to complete a design.

The process begins with the wooden blocks. Wood carvers cut designs into blocks of different shapes and sizes. The top has a handle for the printers to grasp. Each one has two or three cylindrical holes through it to permit the passage of air and to allow excess dye to squeeze out.

The next step in the process is the arrangement of the fabric. Workers stretch 24 layers of jute taut over a long rectangular table. The jute serves as a pad to provide resiliency to the printing surface. The workers secure the fabric to the jute pad with pins, keeping it tightly in place.

When the printers are ready to do the printing, they select from three approaches. In the first method, called discharge printing, the printer dyes the fabric first. Then the printer chemically removes the dye from the portions of the cloth which will take the design. The bleached sections are treated and then dye is reapplied to create the block print design. In the second method, also known as direct printing, the cloth is bleached, and then dyed whole.

Printing is done from left to right. When the printer is using the discharge or direct methods, the printer dips the block into the dye then presses it onto the fabric. The printer slams the back of the wood hard with the fist to create a clear impression.

As they work, the printers pull a wooden cart bearing their tools along with them. The wooden blocks can be interchanged from one piece of fabric to another, creating different patterns. Custom designs and different colors can be used from one fabric to another, creating still more individual work.

Each color of a design is done by a different printer, coming behind the one before and repeating the process. The process requires teamwork, as each subsequent printer must place the block on the fabric accurately to create a beautiful, whole pattern.

Once the pattern is finished on the whole length of fabric, the piece is treated to fix the dyes. First, the fabric is dried in the sun. Once dried, the fabric is rolled in newspapers and steamed in special boilers.