Nature provides the paints

Handmade paper with uneven rugged edges playing host topaintings of warm earthy colours are framed and they deck the walls of GalleryGitanjali in Fontainhas, Panjim. The subjects and the colour tones of thepaintings evoke feelings of being transported to a sepia world, and to a timewhere kings wore pearl necklaces and rode horses and women in colourfulNauvaree sarees (characteristic of Maharashtra) cooked in earthen pots and madeflour from grain using a hand-driven stone mill.

The unique factor that gives these paintings their delightis that the artist – Jayshree Patankar – has used paints and dyes from nature –roots, herbs, fruits, flowers and vegetables. Patankar from Maharashtra hasbeen perfecting this form of painting called Chitrakathi, since the last 25 orso years. “In the museums there are paintings of this sort. No artists do thiskind of work. So I thought what is in the museum is getting extinct, why notcontinue it through my paintings; the natural medium was best suited for mywork,” she explains. Though Chitrakathi dates back to the 17th and 18thcenturies, Patankar has infused the ancient and the modern by depictingelements such as cars and aeroplanes in her paintings. She has blended them ina manner that they do not look out of place among cows, deer, kings and horses.“While the olden paintings depict fight war, my paintings depict development.From riding a deer, people travelled in a chariot and then in a car,” she says.Another element in the paintings that is her own introduction is verses inSanskrit from literature like Shakuntalam and Kavya Mala.

She obtains her dyes by first completely drying the fruits,roots, flowers she collected and then boiling them to get the pigment. “Iexperimented with different hues to get the colours I want. I get a light greencolour from dry onion peels, orange from orange skin and while some pigmentsare easily available, for the others I have to go to the woods, like to searchfor the Palash ka Phool which gives a beautiful orange,” says Patankar.

Before beginning a painting, the handmade paper is soakedfor about 7 to 8 hours. The pigments are then filled into the outlines of thedrawing. The moisture causes the colours to merge. Once the painting iscomplete, it is rubbed on stone, which makes the colour seep better into thepaper. “As years go by, the colours become more prominent. The oldestChitrakathi painting I own is about 40 years,” says Patankar. The colourssurely do warm the heart as one basks in the ideas these paintings convey.