DABU

Rajasthan, the land of Mountains, Forts and dessert is also a home to the Dabu art. The art originated around year 675 A.D. It travelled through the time and generations and the knowledge percolated as inheritance from the ancestors in the artisans’ family.

Process:

The process of Dabu is labor intensive and time consuming. The raw material required for dabu printing is meticulously prepared fine mud, Gum, Wheat Chaff, dyes, the wooden blocks of desired design for stamping on fabric and water.The skill set of labor differs for the each step of process.

To begin the process, the fabric is washed for cleaning the impurities. The clean and dry fabric is spread on a long table with hard mattress base for masking the desired area by applying mud paste with the help of wooden block. After masking is completed the chaff is sprinkled and the fabric is exposed to sunlight for faster drying. Thus dried fabric is ready for getting dyed. Traditionally, natural dyes obtained from plants of dyes, fruits or vegetables are used but in modern days, the synthetic dyes are also used to meet customers’ taste. The fabric is dipped in to the dye and again it is allowed to dry. After the drying the fabric is washed and rinsed to remove the mud. This gives an area with dyed and the area masked with mud remains unaffected by dyes creating a design on fabric. To add different colour or design or getting darker shade of a colour the process is repeated.

      Dabu:

1. DABU printing is an ancient mud resist printing technique from Rajsthan.
2. The art originated around year 675 A.D.
3. The process of Dabu is labour intensive and time consuming.
4. This style of printing is often grouped with other traditional Rajasthani Handicrafts like Sanganeri & Bagru.
5. The typical motifs used are nature-inspired ones of peacocks, mangoes, leaves, cornstalks (called boota), sunflower (surajmukhi) and animal figures. Geometric shapes, dots and wavy lines may also be used.