The History of Fabric Painting

 Being the incredibly expressive and creative species that we are, it is no surprise that we have been creating art for as long as we have known how to, or at least for as long as we have had the resources to actually create art.

Fabric painting, both as an art form as a type of symbolism, showing various messages, giving status to royals and people of power, etc., has been around since at least 3000 B.C, the earliest date at which printing blocks have been discovered in various parts of the ancient world.

Using these blocks, weavers and artisans used minerals and colours created from plants and animals to leave printed patterns and symbols on fabrics, which were then sold or given as gifts to elders and affluent members of society. By 300 B.C, painted fabrics were common among even regular people in India, and would soon become popular around the world.

One of the most common uses of fabric paint was for the creation of house flags which were carried into battle to show which families were being represented. The patterns and colours used were personalized to each family or city, and were later used to brand clothing and all kinds of possessions, and even weapon sheathes and homes.

By around 1000 B.C, a form of fabric paining called Kalamkari, literally meaning ‘pen work’was developed in India, and made use of brushes made from animal hair, sticks and bamboo shoots to draw patterns on cloths. While cotton sheets were most commonly used, as they allow the paint to be absorbed easier, later examples of silk painting has been found, obviously from after the artists found ways of making it hold the paint properly.

By around 200 A.D, as painted fabrics were traded and sold to other societies as the world started to expand and explorers began discovering new worlds, different techniques started forming in countries such as China and Japan, who commonly used stencils and resists in order to create even more detailed patterns in a shorter time than it would take if done completely by hand.

These techniques, while they have obviously changed over the last 19 centuries, remain commonly used to this day. We make use of much more advanced tools and paints, which allow us to both, make fabric art that lasts a long time, while increasing the variety of colours we are able to make use of in painting.


Written by: Wesley Geyer
Creative writer