Tanjore Painting

Tanjore paintings have a very rich heritage. This style of painting has been followed widely by the people in Southern Tamil Nadu for the past two centuries.


Materials Required:

• Plywood above 6 mm thickness.
• White cotton cloth.
• Chalk power.
• Fevicol.
• Flat Brush (above 3" width).
• Sand Paper (emery sheet).
• Arabic Gum.
• Coloured Jaipur Stones.
• Gold foil
• Poster Colours
• Rounded Brushes (000, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8)
• Black Pilot Pen
• Multi colours transparent ink (photo colour).
• Cutter, Ruler,   Yellow carbon paper, pencil.
• Reference art to trace

Canvas preparation:

1. Take a clean cotton cloth.(Cloth size should be wider than the plywood atleast 1 inch in all the sides. If your plywood size is 14 x 18 inches
2. then your cloth should be wider than 16 x 20 inches)
3. Take the Plywood and soften the edges with sand paper.
4. Now let us prepare the first paste for pasting the cloth on the Plywood.Ratio – Water: Fevicol - 4:1
5. Filter the paste by coffee filter & Immerse cotton cloth in it for few minutes.
6. Now Lift wet cotton cloth from the first paste, rinse the cloth gently. Hold it for a while so that extra paste to get drained.
7. Now spread, wet cloth on top of the plywood and wipe the cloth gently from centre to edge horizontally & fold extra cloth to the other side.
8. Pull the folded extra cloth for wrinkle free surface in the front side and paste backside cloth strongly with Fevicol only. Keep the wet canvas to dry on the newspaper for couple of hours.

Lets prepare the second paste for layering the canvas

1. Make a paste of ratio Chalk powder: Water: Fevicol - 2: 1: 1
2. Take a clean wide flat brush (preferred size is 2-3 inch brush), apply the second paste on the canvas horizontally and leave it for 10-15 minutes to dry. Then go for applying vertically. Repeat the same until completion of the layering paste. Leave it to dry in shade for one day.
3. Now take a piece of emery paper, fold that as a longer stripe. Gently rub the canvas circularly. This is done for smooth even surface. Clean it with a dry flat brush.
4. Now the canvas is ready for Tajore painting. If you want a glassy look you can add some portion of Arabic gum with the layering gum (step 2) itself.

Trace the design:

• Now trace the design using yellow carbon paper on the canvas. Do not trace the image in detail. For example while tracing the ornaments just trace the outlines only. Not in details of the shapes. The trace is for only the judgment of the area of the decorative areas and shapes of the figure. Care should be taken at this stage to provide a margin recess on all the four sides of the board to accommodate the frame, once the painting is completed

Sculptural Stage:

1. By using round/flat brush, apply a smooth layer of embossing gum in the decorative areas. 
2. The ratio of embossing layer is Ratio – Arabic Gum: Chalk powder: Fevicol - 1:2:1
3. Leave the Canvas with Emboss effort to get for more than a day.
4. If you want more embossment for certain area repeat the above process.
5. Now mark the correct places using a pencil/pen to paste the stones & pearls.
6. After the exact confirmation of the location for Stones & pearls, Mix Few drops of Fevicol with some water. Stick the stones starting with bigger stones first.
7. Leave it to get fix for a day.

Decorating Stage:

1. To get a smooth effect on the glittering area of the Tanjore art. You need to apply one more layer of embossing gum over the stones/pearls.
2. Wait for one hour. Now pick a bowl of water & cotton. Dip a piece of cotton in the water, and squeeze it to remove extra water.
3. Now with the wet cotton, gently rub circular manner on the embossed area.

Improvise Stage:

1. Mark the design with the help of Ball-point pen over embossed area.
2. In a cone fill a mixture which contains Arabic Gum: Chalk powder: Fevicol in ratio of - 2:2:1/2 carefully do cone work in filling area (like side corner / pillar) with good traditional design. Also give boundaries to the stones and pearls with the help of the cone. And let it dry.
3. Now cut a gold foil sheet from the Gold foil booklet. Place the gold foil sheet over the design and mark an edge impression with your thumb for approximate shape.
4. Cut the require shape of gold foil by leaving 3 to 4 mm extra on all the sizes of the require shape.
5. Apply glue (Fevicol with water mixture) to the back side of the gold foil & place over design area.
6. Remove gold foil pasted over stones. For this Groove the shape with Safety-pin gently. Just apply wet brush in the center of stone.
7. Use safety-pin to remove the soften wet gold foil. You can use Johnson buds instead of brush. Shape of the stone can be adjust using safety-pin itself Painting 
8. Now paint the figures and background carefully with poster colours . The painting is normally done using white colour for the key figure and slightly shading it with blue or the normal body colour. The depiction is normally static and the painting does not reflect any action or movement. The usage of the background colours is mostly striking - it is a dark hue of red, blue or green. The paintings are characterized by pillars and curtains in the side, and some smaller compartmentalization at the bottom or top to accommodate small figures

Tips:

• Liquid muck used to make the tanjore paintings little emboss, after sticking stones you have to use this liquid muck and the painting little emboss.
• Semi liquid muck used to make the design works above the emboss stage. 
• Paste form musk helps to do the final design, you can use the brush or cone for the final stage.