- Resist printing refers to a term used for a variety of traditional methods of dyeing textiles with patterns. Several methods are used to resist or in other terms prevent the dye from reaching all the cloth, thus creating a pattern as well as ground. Some of the most common forms make use of wax, some type of paste or even a mechanical resist that in turn manipulates the cloth such as tying or stitching. One of the other forms of resist do include usage of a chemical agent in a specific type of dye that will, in turn repel another type of dye printed over the top. Some of the most well-known varieties today includes tie-dye and batik.
- Some of the basic methods of resist printing includes the following:-
- Firstly, it is wax or paste. Before dipping the cloth in dye, melted wax or some form of paste is applied to the cloth. On whichever place the wax has seeped through the fabric, the dye won’t penetrate. Quite some times, several colors are used along with series of dyeing, drying and waxing steps. The wax can also be applied to yet another piece of cloth for making a stencil that is placed over the cloth and dye applied to the assembly.
- Paper stencil is quite often used as yet another type of resist printing. The similar method is used in art in printmaking or in one form of screen-printing.
- Yet another type of resist printing involves mechanical. The cloth is either tied, stitched or even clamped through usage of clothespegs or wooden blocks for shielding areas of fabrics.
- Another form of resist printing involves chemical printing. It is a kind of modern textile printing method that is quite commonly achieved through usage of two varied classes of fiber reactive dyes, the one being vinyl sulfone type. A chemical resisting agent is combined with dye Type A and then printed using the screenprint method as well as allowed to dry. After that, a second dye named type B is printed overtop. As it happens that resist agent type A chemically does prevent Type B from reacting with the fabric thereby resulting in a crisp pattern or ground relationship.
- Both Eurasia and Africa have been using resist printing on a wider basis. The very first discoveries of pieces of linen was from Egypt and dates back from fourth century when the cloth used to be soaked in wax and then scratched with a sharp stylus and dyed with a mixture of blood as well as ashes and later on washed in hot water for removal of wax. In the continent Asia, such technique was practiced in China during Tang dynasty and in India and Japan during Nara dynasty. In the African continent, it was originally practiced by the Yoruba tribes of Nigeria. In Indonesia, it is quite closely tied with the making batik and was first recorded by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in his very book.
