Alizarin printing is one of the most practiced techniques of hand block printing in India. It is a kind of direct mordant based hand block printing technique. It is known as alizarin print because of use of alizarin as an essential element in the dyeing process. In this block printing technique basically two vegetable colors available made from natural elements are red or maroon and black. To get red color first alum mordant is printed and then dyed with alizarin (Madder or al roots) to get red color but today synthetic alizarin is used in the process due to easy availability and cost factor and black color extracted by fermenting jaggery powder with iron rust.
Bagh print is one of the famous name of “alizarin print” practiced in the Bagh village of Madhya Pradesh. It got famous due to its local specialty found high copper content in the “Baghini river” gives a vibrant red color while dyeing with alizarin. Due to its local specialty it got geographical indicated brand status in the year 2009. For black color now a days in Bagh ready made iron rust known as “Kashish” is used in the process.
Bagru print is also a famous form of alizarin hand block printing technique done in Bagru village of Rajasthan situated on Jaipur-Ajmer highway 30 kilometers away from Jaipur. Here also alizarin printing is done which is got Geographical Indication for its local specialty. In Bagru alizarin gives a beautiful maroon red shade.
Tarapur village of Madhya Pradesh is a less known place where alizarin hand block printing is also practiced. They are still using “Kath” (Vegetable black color) using jiggery powder and iron rust instead of “kashish” (Ready made vegetable black color), which gives dark black is the specialty of this place.. It is a very small village situated on the banks of “Ghambhiri” river having population of 2500 to 3000. Here red from alizarin gives beautiful brick red shade.
EcoFab uses vegetable color made from roots of one of the species of Morinda tree family founded by us for master pieces which gives golden yellow to brown shade.