Batik pattern generator

Wax-resist cloth from Java. Choose mega mendung clouds, ceplok rosettes or truntum stars, how many motifs fit across the tile and how rich each is, and export a seamless pattern as SVG, PNG or CSS.

Open in the generator How it works

Navy cloud motifs of nested wavy bands with small curls, in staggered rows on a beige ground

Wax, dye and the language of motifs

In batik the pattern is drawn on cloth in hot wax, with a pen called a canting or printed with a copper stamp, and the cloth is then dyed so that the waxed lines stay light. The method is used across Indonesia, and its motifs differ from court to coast. Mega mendung, the “rain cloud”, comes from Cirebon on the north coast of Java: bands of the same cloud shape in graduated blues or reds, a Chinese-inspired motif of calm. Ceplok is the family of geometric rosettes and stars laid on a grid. Truntum, a pattern of small star-flowers on a dark ground, is said to have been invented by a queen of the Surakarta court and means “to grow again”.

Ornamatic draws general versions in the manner of these batiks. They are not copies of any particular cloth.

How the generator builds them

The mega mendung cloud is a lobed shape drawn several times, each smaller than the last, in alternating colors, with a curl at the side. Ceplok is a rosette of petals inside a ring with diamonds and dots between the rosettes. Truntum is a star of eight rays with small petal tips and dots between them, on a staggered grid.

The clouds and stars sit on a grid with a whole number of cells per repeat, and every other row is shifted by half a cell, so the tile repeats exactly. Richness adds rings, petals and dots.