Singapore Fact of the Day: Batik is a method (originally used in Java) of producing colored designs on textiles by dyeing them, having first applied wax to the parts to be left undyed. It is now a modern painting style developed in the Indonesia region (which country that "started" batik is still contested, but Malay/Singapore region is where the painting method began). Below is a simple video of how the general batik technique is made.
Today was probably one of my favorite days of the entire trip thus far!
In the morning, we were brought in to a studio and learned how to do batik painting. It was so fascinating to see how it was done, and we even got an opportunity to practice ourselves. The studio was littered with works done by a few of the artists who run the studio and their advanced students. This was the first time we actually got to do something hands on as artists, and is one of the reasons why it was one of my favorite things we got to do on the trip. While my piece was no master artwork, I'm proud of it and I had a lot of fun. It's an incredibly cathartic art form. If you want to know the basic process of what we did, the video above shows a very similar process.
After our Batik session, we briefly checked out the Ramadan festival that was nearby. It was a 24 hour market/night market that ran during the entirety of the Ramadan celebration. We went during the day when it was less busy, but the sheer amount of stalls visible and around us was incredible. While we never got to check it out at night, it looked like it would have been really fun to see.
For lunch, we went to a small food court and got Laksa. Laksa is a spicy noodle soup popular in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. It has thick wheat noodles multiple meats including chicken, prawn and/or fish, served in spicy soup based on either rich and spicy curry coconut milk or on sour asam. While my friends weren't fans, I actually found it to be pretty tasty (besides maybe the fish).
After lunch, we went to Masonry studios, a small studio of about 10-12 people that do 3D animation (right up my alley). It was the coolest studio we've been to thus far, and they do incredible work. They were also candid, detailed, and very responsive to our questions. I also definitely took the most notes here. It was cool to see the pipeline of how their work goes from an idea to a deliverable.
It's a place I would definitely love to work at in the future (or something similar).
Finally, a few others and I went to the LASALLE College of the Arts "Industry Night", which was a showcase for the animation students at that school. They had a lot of neat displays for their work, and invited people from the Industry in Singapore to talk to them and hope to get a job. And by people from the industry, I mean big wigs. There were people from small studios, but also places like Ubisoft and LucasFilm. I actually got to talking with one of the amazing employees of LucasFilm, and got one of my first industry contacts through her. She was so easy to talk to, and I hope I am able to stay in touch with her in the future.
As you can see, my day was incredibly busy, but so fulfilling in many different ways. It was one of the highlights of my trip, most definitely.