Showing posts with label Ganesha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ganesha. Show all posts
Friday, 7 December 2012
Friday, 30 November 2012
The making of My Kerala Mural
I'd mentioned my plans to attend a Kerala Mural workshop in an earlier post.....so here are the pics from it. I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 day intense program. Before I went for it, I was wondering how many murals we would complete sitting 7 hours a day for 3 days. How many?! We were hardly able to complete one! Its such a tedious process and there are so many intricate details in the drawings that its a lot of effort but the end result makes it all worth it!
Traditionally these murals are paintings of Hindu Deities done on walls of temples and palaces in Kerala. The colors used were all natural dyes. The most interesting aspect of these murals is Panchvarna or the use of only 5 colors - Yellow, red, green, blue and black. These are painted on a white background, so the white spaces in the pictures are left blank to show through.
Acrylics are being used on canvas and other media more recently. Except for those changes, we used the original traditional method to do the mural. The basic steps after preparing the background (which are not required on a white canvas) are -
Trace out the drawing. We used graphite transfer method for it.
Do the outline again with red paint.
Fill in yellow for the ornaments, head-dress, the stems, the dress and the background.
A double coat of yellow where required.
A bold red outline and some shading and some red effects on the background.
Yellow for the body (multiple coats).
Then green for leaves, stems and dress.
Then blue for some parts of the dress and garlands.
Finally a black outline all over again and for the hair.
A close up of Ganesha - My First Kerala Mural
Acrylics are being used on canvas and other media more recently. Except for those changes, we used the original traditional method to do the mural. The basic steps after preparing the background (which are not required on a white canvas) are -
Trace out the drawing. We used graphite transfer method for it.
Do the outline again with red paint.
Fill in yellow for the ornaments, head-dress, the stems, the dress and the background.
A double coat of yellow where required.
A bold red outline and some shading and some red effects on the background.
Yellow for the body (multiple coats).
Then green for leaves, stems and dress.
Then blue for some parts of the dress and garlands.
Finally a black outline all over again and for the hair.
The starting point - the drawing given to us
The sketch on the canvas
The first step - outline with red paint
Filling in the yellow parts
Red outlines and shading
With the reference painting
Background completed
Again yellow for the body
Now for some green
And some blue
After the final step - black outlines
And I completed my first Kerala Mural. Hope to make more sometime soon.
This one goes to PPF and Show and tell Saturday #30. Drop in there to see some amazing art.
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