Exploring Tanjore (Thanjavur) painting

Sid and Nidhi's interest in epics such as Ramayana and other mythological stories are still going strong. They have sketched, colored, painted numerous deities till date.
One day they heard me reminiscing about how I visited art exhibitions and admired Tanjore paintings when I was in Chennai. "What is Tanjore painting?" an instant question was raised.
I tried to explain the process of creating the beautiful traditional art to them to the best of my knowledge. Their eyes widened. I showed them a few images of adoring Krishna sitting with a pot full of butter, an elegant Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) and some more deities.
"How do they do that?", interest increased.
We then watched a couple of Tanjore painting tutorial videos.

"I want to do Tanjore painting now", declared Sid.
"But we don't have the required materials." I replied.
"That's ok Mom! We can do with what we have.", he insisted.
So we discussed what substitutes can be chosen for those beautiful gem stones, the muck work and gold foil.

"We can use glitter for stones", "We have foil at home, only that it is silver in color but that's ok", " We have clay for muck" , the ideas flew out from both of them. I could understand their eagerness to try their hands at it and so I agreed.

I handed them watercolor paper and asked them to sketch first. "Mom, we don't know to draw big pictures, can you give us stencils?" asked Nidhi.

Once handed, I was surprised by their pencil outlines.
Step 1:
They combined some basic shapes to draw outlines of the deities.

Sketch of Lakshmi with shapes

Step 2:

Next step was to add some glitter glue in lieu of the gem stones in traditional Tanjore painting.

Sketching and glitter work(stone work)

Adding glitter work

Step 3:

  Painting with water color paints. They studied the nature of colors used in traditional paintings. "We should use light colors for skin, dark colors for clothes and some colors to fill the background. See there is no white paper in this drawing", they observed. Step 2 and Step 3 are interchanged at times. I personally feel that coloring before glitter work is much easier to work.

Painting with water colors

Step 4: Muck work. In traditional Tanjore painting this is a significant step. The muck or gesso work provides the embossing effect in the painting. Chalk powder and gum arabic are traditionally used to prepare the muck/gesso. However we did not have any of those materials at hand. So, the kids improvised. "We can use air dry clay and glue." suggested Nidhi. I mixed up  a little portion of air dry clay with glue and made it into a paste with water . We used a sandwich bag to make a cone. Nidhi practiced drawing lines and dots on a rough sheet. Still it was a bit challenging effort for her. This step of adding muck layers was done with my help.

Nidhi trying muck work

Step 5: Let the muck work dry.

Srinivasa after dried muck work

Step 6: In traditional process, the next step is to add gold foil. Obviously we did not have any, so we chose the aluminum foil. Shiny!
We cut and glued the foil on the dried muck work. This step too required bit of my help.

Gluing the foil

Gluing the foil

The end products are much to their satisfaction. We have been contemplating the idea of gifting some of these paintings to our families. Grandparents, aunts and uncles act surprised if they really bring themselves to part their hard work and share them with you :)

Here are the paintings that are in progress in their art studio right now.

Sri Rama - Sid

Sri Ganesha - Nidhi (Facial features -yours truly)

Radha and Krishna - Nidhi

Srinivasa/ Hari - Sid

Sri Lakshmi - Sid

Sri Krishna with Balaram and Radha - Sid

Sri Saraswati - Sid

Sri Lakshmi - Nidhi (Facial features by yours truly )

Srinivasa/Hari - Sid 

So, this is just another art and craft activity, right? Where is the learning? Well, in my view a lot of learning is happening.

1. Learning about their culture, native art, geography and mythology.

2.  Learning that Math is everywhere. Everything that you draw has a basic shape and pattern!

3. Enhancing their coloring and fine motor skills.

4. Learning to have patience. This is one of their longest art project with lot of waiting times to dry. This has taught them to be persistent and maintain their interest for long periods of time.

5. Learning to share something that is close to your heart. This is still in progress. May not happen. But coming up with idea of sharing their work by itself is success. 

"What is done in love is done well." - Vincent Van Gogh