Friday, February 21, 2014

Block-printing at ArtInnJaipur

Devena Singh runs ArtInnJaipur a guest-house that offers block-printing workshops on the premises. 


The day after I arrived, I began printing blocks on the 
fabric-covered printing table, with the expert guidance of printer Gopalji, who also prints fabrics for Devena.


The wet inks are mixed from dry pigments, sieved through fabric and placed in wooden trays with metal screening and a few layers of fabric mesh of varying degrees of coarseness. You select the coarseness of the top layer of fabric to suit the block you are printing. For a more detailed block, you put the finest mesh on top. For a broader, bolder block a coarser fabric is used.



We had the chance to play with whichever blocks we chose. Here are some stages from my maiden voyage on cotton. 









 
 We visited the wood-block carver in Sangenar. 







Hartash commissioned a beautiful block which she received before returning to Delhi.




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