Ainna Artwork, Central Market KL
You can now create beautiful batik in a shopping mall.
IF YOU’RE a tourist looking for a craft idea, or just someone who loves to paint, Ainna Artwork may just be the place for you.
Ainna Fareha is the owner of the shop, which is located within the Central Market shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur. As you enter the shop, you’ll see many beautiful batik-style paintings of owls, butterflies, flowers and even the Petronas Twin Towers. Together with her husband Nabil Ibrahim, Ainna has been running art classes at the workshop since 2012.
Ainna Artwork holds batik painting classes, batik-making demonstrations and batik workshops for customers; you can also buy batik-themed products from the shop.
Why you should go
It’s a good place to learn some basic points on batik. You can also make batik the easy way using nifty little kits that the workshop provides. Ainna is on hand to teach her “students” how to do things properly and to talk about the history of batik in Malaysia.
You can create your own designs, too, though you would need to pay extra for that.
What to do
Paint, of course! All you need is a bit of creativity, really.
Visitors can paint pre-set batik drawings or come up with their own designs. Ainna’s patterns are mostly made up of Malaysian flora (rafflesia, hibiscus) and fauna (cats, turtles), as well as iconic landmarks like the KLCC.
You can purchase sheets of fabric that come in different sizes and with different designs drawn on them for RM20 (or more). Nabil sketches the designs on the fabric which is placed on a frame, and Ainna does the “canting” work (a canting is a pen-like tool used to apply liquid hot wax in the batik-making process). If you have a design in mind, bring it with you.
Walk-in customers are welcome but for special requests, please make a booking at least one week in advance.
Who will like it
Children and adults of all ages are welcome to try their hand at batik painting.
“Some of my regular customers even end up visiting my shop at least two or three times a month. Most of my customers are foreigners as Central Market is full of tourists. But that’s nice, because I get to promote batik to the world,” says Ainna.
Getting there
Take the LRT or MRT (both stops are called Pasar Seni). There are many tourist attractions in the surrounding area including Merdeka Square and Petaling Street (KL’s Chinatown).