Balinese Batik and Japanese Dinner

Saturday morning I had booked to do a Batik class with I Nyoman Warta - booking was quite interesting as I'd had to wander into his house in person on Thursday at Jalan Gautama No 12 and speak to his son as his wife didn't have enough English to understand what I was asking!  I wrote my name in a book for Saturday and the money I wanted to pay which denoted the size of the Batik that I would be doing.  Anyway, weirdly enough it turns out that I had been trying to book with the very similarly named I Nyoman Suradnya who is at number 10 (i.e. next door!) and had emailed on Tuesday, but not received a reply, which is why I had gone along in person to book.  Just a bit confusing to have two Batik artists next door on the same street with nearly the same name!  You would think that they might try and differentiate themselves a little better!  The benefits I think from the class I ended up taking accidentally are that it was one to one tuition and cheaper from what I can tell from looking at the other teacher's website.  

So I arrived at the class and there was an Australian couple picking up their completed Batik (reassuring as it was literally his house that I'd gone into for the class!) and after a little confusion the teacher gave me some paper and told me to sketch.  I was at first a bit taken aback, I had though that a class would be very much him teaching me, maybe showing me examples or giving me some stencils to use.  I haven't really done any sketching since I took a drawing workshop at Buns & Roses last year!  I sat looking a bit lost for a while and so he suggested that I drew what I loved about Bali - I said that I loved everything and then I thought about the one thing that I love more than anything - Cats!  I took out my IPhone and scrolled through my saved pictures before coming up with the one of Pocky below to base my design on.

I started off by sketching the outline of Pocky with her paw draped over the side of the chair, but slowly changed the chair into a branch and made the underneath into a pond using some of the pictures of the fish I'd seen at the Holy Water temple to inspire me (as well as copying some of the pictures that the teacher had on display).  I also put some Frangipani Flowers in the top corners for decoration as one of the things that I love about Bali is their fragrance and the fact that *Everything* is decorated with flowers and often they are Franipani.  Here is my initial sketch.

After my sketch on paper I was then given a frame with cotton stretched over it and I had to transfer the design in pencil onto the fabric.  Nyoman told me not to worry if the pencil showed as the Batik process would hide it.  He then gave me a sarong to wear (I think to protect my trousers) and showed me how to apply the wax to the lines on the design that I wanted to keep white with a special instrument called a Chanting or Tjanting.  I practiced first on some paper and found it fairly easy to get the hang of, you just need to angle it right so you don't get too much wax rushing out at once and move it with confidence along the lines that you want.  Similar in technique I think to icing letters onto a cake.  Here is the next stage of my Batik with the sketch outlined in wax and a picture of the pot that is used to melt the wax.

Nyoman then provided me with 4 different pots of coloured dye - red, yellow, brown and blue and showed me how to apply the dye which you can do fairly freehand and don't have to worry about staying in the lines!  I used the brown for Pocky and then swirled a lot of the colour around with a reassurance that the next layers would add more detail.  Here is another process picture.

The next stage was pretty simple - applying some green coloured liquid over the whole screen - it looks like he's doing it for me, but he just showed me what to do and I filled in the rest!

The next stage was very simple - he asked his son to rinse the screen for him and then he dried it off with a cloth and left it in the sun for a few minutes to dry.

We then sat down next to the melted wax again and he showed me how to use a normal paint brush to block out bits of the picture that I wanted to stay that colour e.g. some of the fish scales, parts of the Frangipani flower and the whole of Pocky apart from her eyes that would be black and would be the last colour to go on.

The next part was really good fun - sweeping loads of paraffin over the main parts of the picture for "cracking" - basically I coated the whole of the "water section" and the "sky section" with a layer of paraffin.

The next bit is also fun - you run your finger nail underneath the paraffin covered areas to create "cracks".  

When you are happy with the cracks a layer of darker blue dye was put over the entire screen with a bit think paintbrush.

The paraffin cracking process is then repeated and this time red dye is put over the whole picture, first some more areas are blocked out with wax to keep the same colour such at the flowers.

The process is repeated again and this time black dye is put over the entire picture with special attention to applying it to areas that I wanted black such as Pocky's eyes and the fish eyes.  I also did some cracking along the tree branch to make it look a bit like wood.  To make sure that the dye made it all the way through, it's applied to the back of the screen too.

And then finally it was the big reveal, to remove the wax I had thought it would be a case of complicated ironing off of all the wax, but it was actually much  more straight forward - you just dunk it in a big bucket of hot water and it melts off into the water!

They washed it a couple more times to remove all the wax fully and then it was hung over a tree to dry and I chatted a little more with Nyoman who has limited English beyond teaching Batik, but was able to tell me about how he'd been due to exhibit and teach in Holland, but then his sister died and he had to cancel his plans to save for her cremation ceremony and then he had been due to exhibit and teach in Germany and then his father died.  He really was a lovely teacher and so genuine - all along he said that if I wanted a break and to come back later he wouldn't charge any extra as he charged per piece and not per day and how he felt it was important to only teach small groups at a time so that people didn't make big mistakes and were disappointed with what they created.

  

After my Batik had dried I paid Nyoman and walked back to my hotel room for a well earned cool down and break (Nyoman had even sent his son during the lesson to buy tissues as he could see I was so hot!)  

Rachel came over with Kiran who had achieved a record 2 hour nap!  It was getting into early evening so we decided upon an early dinner and walked over to her favourite Japanese restaurant - Kagemusha which has a lovely view over the rice fields and she'd often seen cats in!  I tried some local rice wine - Brem which was only 10000 rupiah (60p) per glass and was surprisingly tasty and we both opted for Bento Boxes for our main courses which came with loads - Miso soup, noodles, rice, vegetable and prawn tempura, chicken and some vegetables and pickles.  Kiran enjoyed the food, but enjoyed pulling himself up over the rails next to the ricefield and shouting with glee!

Right at the end of the meal we saw something that I've wanted to see since I first arrived in Bali this time - a Tokay gecko!  They are basically bigger versions of the small lizards that you commonly see running around all over the place, but make the most noisy and strange calls at night that sound like they should be made by a bird - you can hear them yourself Here.  And here is a picture that I took before this particular Tokay snaffled a moth it had been chasing. 

We walked back up Monkey Forest Road stopping to pick up some Snickers flavoured ice cream for dessert (diet starts when I get back to England, or maybe Leeds at least!).  We decided to grab a glass of wine and so went back to Arts Kafe which was fine until the band started playing complete with Bongo drums waking Kiran up who had very easily fallen off to sleep in his sling.  Wine in Bali is not cheap - it was 75000 rupiah in Arts Kafe which is particularly pricey and usually about 35000 rupiah, however in most places it's about 185000 a bottle which is what we paid for a bottle of Hatten White Wine in Arts Kafe - about £11.  A local beer in comparison is only about 15000 rupiah or £1.  Rachel walked back with a sleepy Kiran, I finished the wine and grabbed a grape juice and some water from the shop on the way back before heading to bed at an unheard of time for me at 10pm as I was totally exhausted!

Bali Belly and Blanco

So rather annoyingly I'm writing this blog entry first of all on wordpad as I first of all tried the WIFI at the hotel and it wasn't working, so I've then come into 3 Monkeys where I used WIFI a couple of days ago and it doesn't seem to be working - grr tedious!  Especially since I just paid 50000 rupiah for a beer!

So today was a bit different, I got up at a similar time, had breakfast, but my stomach felt a bit odd.  Rach messaged me to say that she had a bit too much work on and so I said that I was fine to amuse myself for the day whilst she got her work done.  Rach suggested the Antonio Blanco museum and gallery which I had regretted not visiting last time we were here, especially as we had to walk past it at least twice a day on the way to and from our hotel Tjampuhan which really was *miles* away! 

So I got back to the room and started to get ready to go out, but stomach just wasn't right, I didn't have painful cramps, but (and I'll spare you the details) the next 4 hours meant that it was very useful to have an en-suite toilet!  I read a load more of "The Hunger Games"  and snuck out to buy some Pocari Sweat (isotonic drink) and coconut milk both of which I know to be good at replacing fluids and salts etc when you are dehydrated.  I also made an educated guess at what a version of Imodium was over here and emailed the photo to Rach to translate (fortunately I was right, although I've not actually needed to take any of them yet thankfully!).  I napped for a bit and then woke up at 2pm and decided that I'd wasted enough of the day and so got up and walked down to the Antonio Blanco museum. 

It's probably only about 15 - 20 minutes walk, but I was just so hot that I was really hot, sweaty and horrible by the time I arrived there.  I paid my entrance fee of 50000 rupiah and then was directed to the restaurant for my complimentary welcome drink which was ice cool and much appreciated.  What I appreciated a whole lot more was the lovely cool towel that the waiter gave me.

I walked around the Blanco museum and he's clearly very odd, very close/friendly to Michael Jackson and obsessed with erotica, but I really enjoyed his art.  Here is one of his Jacko pictures (not my photo as obviously in a gallery photography is not allowed!)

The building in which the gallery was based was beautiful   Lots of very dark colours and gold, it should have looked horrendously tacky, but it was actually really intriguing and appealing.  His artwork was a lot of very detailed oil paintings, but also lots of collage work interspersed with writings and poetry that he had written.   The style (although definitely not the content) reminded me of some of the work that my friend Hayley has done - scrap book style with writing and text mixed with different collages of different media.  I really enjoyed looking at it and hopefully I'll be able to use it to inspire me to do some more creative embroidery.  He also had loads of really ostentatious frames for all the pictures which formed part of the overall impact of each of the pieces.

One of the descriptions attached to one of his paintings that I found both intriguing and deeply disturbing was when he was asked his opinion on the meaning of life and he said that it was the idea of fondling the buttocks of an 18 year old in one hand and a ripe mango in the next - or something like that.**  

**Edit - just found the actual description now that I'm back online and here it is:

Probably, because of the Erotic feeling in his painting, I am compelled to tell a true story that relates to this Mystic-Erotica.I received a letter from an enthusiastic Art collector from London in which he asks: "Antonio, you are rather Philosophic; what have you found to be the meaning of life?" My Answer: "When I am bitting into a ripe succulent Mango in my right hand, and at the same time fondling (with my left hand) the firm buttocks of an 18 year girl…..er…..Model, THAT I have found to be the closest THING to a MEANING FOR LIFE" Frame of red and gold exotic Blanco - design.

I wasn't sure when I went up to the second floor of the gallery whether I should go up onto the roof using the slightly rickety spiral staircase, but I did anyway and the view was fantastic - jungle and rice fields.  

The gardens in which the museum and gallery is set is pretty spectacular too, there are loads of vividly coloured parrots on perches which if you like you can have put on your shoulder.  I didn't really fancy this, but I did take a couple of pictures.  I then ventured into the gift shop via a place where they had a DVD playing depicting a dodgy acting out of Blanco courting his Balinese dancer wife and bought the "Fabulous Blanco" book getting a bit confused by the conversion price again.

 Needless to say that things are generally very cheap in Ubud, but I spent more on this book than probably any other book that I've ever bought before!  It looks good though so hopefully it will be worth it!  The lady in the shop complimented my perfume, but then tried to sell me lots of jewelry designed by Blanco's daughter, she was certainly persistent.  **

**Edit, I'm a bit happier with my purchase as I've just seen this as a description on Amazon: 

Currently unavailable.

We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.

I then had buyers remorse for about an hour, walked back towards my hotel noticing for the first time a very well disguised Starbucks and then stopped off at Kenko for a pedicure.  It was the first place I ever had a manicure at the age of 29 so I thought that it was appropriate that I should visit the same place for my first ever proper pedicure.  I do think that they were laughing at me as so much dead skin was filed away from my hardworking and runners feet.

I headed back to the hotel for a well earned shower and started to watch The Hangover 2 on my netbook before Rachel came over to head out for dinner.  We went to a Cuban restaurant - Cafe Havana (Rachel, Coddy and I had a fab holiday back in 2007 to Cuba so it was nice to reminisce)  Kiran very helpfully fell asleep and so Rachel managed to eat tapas and drink sangria with one hand.  The tapas was really tasty and it was one of the very few restaurants in Ubud that seems to cater for children as they were able to provide Rachel with a baby chair which was useful until Kiran fell asleep.  I managed to get timings wrong and ordered another jug of Sangria before realising that Made was coming to get Rachel back from my hotel in less than 20 minutes!  I had to drink it pretty quickly which wasn't hard as I was thirsty and it was tasty, but it did feel a bit wrong!  I went back to my room, failed to pick up wifi as I mentioned, I tried again in the breakfast room opposite the pool and again failed, but I was also persuaded to move on as there was swimming in the pool in the dark which was a bit odd and worrying! 

Anyway, photos to follow when the connection speed is better...