steps on fabrics
Perhaps you also have the question why this art is mentioned with two titles. The reason for this difference is the changes that the calligraphy industry has seen. The name of this art comes back to the type of production and how it is made. At the beginning of this industry, patterning was done on cotton and probably silk fabrics with a pen, and in fact, the design was drawn on the fabric with the art of painting. The need for high speed in the production of kalamkar fabric made the use of templates for all designs and motifs become common and took the name of chitsazi. Of course, chit-making is generally the same as printing on fabric, and it is used as a wrong term equivalent to penmanship cloth. Here, we have an overview of the different stages of making penmanship cloth, which makes anyone's writing disappear. p>
1- Pre-work fabric wash
After preparing the colors, the pen-makers wash the fabrics well to remove their food and waste materials. They put the cloths in the river water for five days and do not shake them. Then they take one end of the cloth and by hitting the free end of it against the stone, waste materials are taken out of the cloth and so called, they drink it. Dyeing the pea background of fabric is one of the usual steps in penmanship, which is done with pomegranate skin and helilah. Some people prefer to whiten the fabric, so after washing it, they spread it on a wide sandy floor and sprinkle water on it regularly, so that after some time it will become white due to sunlight.
If the part of the design that is going to be printed on the fabric is colored, the pattern background should be yellow, not white. After the fabric dries, it is cut into different sizes to make various types of curtains, such as curtains and tablecloths.
2- Printing Role on Fabric
For penmanship printing on fabric, a table made of plantain, mulberry or forest timber is required, which has a surface of two meters long and one and a half meters wide, and is placed on firm bases with a height of sixty centimeters. The legs of the table are sunk ten centimeters into the floor of the workshop to prevent the table from shaking. The surface of this table is made by overlapping wool or linen fabric to a thickness of approximately seven centimeters, so that when printing, the small and large and sensitive parts of the template can easily be placed on the fabric.
After washing, patterning begins on the fabric, and the artist transfers the patterns to the fabric with the help of wooden molds - each of which shows a color. The master paints the mold with black paint and adds a lot of ink to it so that it does not melt during printing. He presses the template with his left hand at the desired point on the fabric and with the punch of his right hand, he makes the pattern transfer from the template to the fabric. The masters of penmanship wear a piece of cloth called a wristband or wristband on their hands. This hand screw is made of leather or fabric and is used to prevent pain and discomfort caused by impact and hand pressure on the mold. After the black motifs, it is the turn of red, blue and yellow colors to sit on the fabric. In each workshop, each female model is in charge of implementing one color and hands the fabric to the person next to her for the next color.
3- Fabric Washing and Color Stabilization
After embossing, the fabric is washed again to remove excess colors and after drying, it is prepared for color fixation. To fix the color, they fill a pot with water and boil it. For every 1000 meters of fabric, about 12 kg of pomegranate peel is ground and after that, about 90 kg of Runas kernels are added to the water. The fabric is boiled in this water to fix the colors. Before contact with Runas, the red color of the characters is the color of pus, and it is slowly returning to its original state. They use long sticks to turn the fabric upside down so that the resulting solution is completely absorbed by the fabric. After removing the fabric from this solution, they wash it again in river water; Then it is pounded against the stone again so that the water and runas come out.
After drying, the fabrics are divided into two parts; First, the fabrics that must have a cream background and be sent to the workshop for the next step of printing, which is to get other colors. Second, fabrics that need to be whitened and need a bleaching stage. Fabrics that need to be whitened are soaked in a special solution. Then they spread the cloth on the ground so that its patterns are facing the ground and the back is facing the sun. Water is constantly sprinkled on the cloth so that it stays moist and does not dry out. Fabric bleaching work takes 5 days in summer and this time may reach a month in winter. This time depends on the temperature and the duration of direct sunlight. After the bleaching work is finished, the work of printing blue, yellow and green colors on the fabric begins, and in this way, after another washing of the fabric, the work is almost finished.