Page 103 - Tibetan Thangka Painting Methodsand Mat, Jackson

it for light patches that needed more shading. As long as all colours were complete.) Because in the completed·
the tinted area remained damp it was difficult to tell if and framed thangka a red silk brocade was used adjacent
the shading was right, and thus it was advantageous to to the painting, this red-painted strip functioned later as
work on a second area - or even the sky of a second a guideline (and a margin for error) for the tailor who
thangka - while the fust one dried. sewed the brocade frame. This red paint around the
border also immediately brought the painting to life by
Applying Blue to Other Areas the contrast it created with the green landscape and blue
sky. Areas to be painted later with gold now received,
After painting the sky, the artist went on to ftil in areas in their tum, an undercoating of ochie.
of uniform blues. First he ftiled in areas of deepest During the initial application of these colours
azure (mthing), such as the blue parts of the blue-green some painters used wet shading here and there to create
rocky crags, tine blue backgrounds of some body colour transitions. Our main informants, however,
nimbuses, and the hair and begging bowls of Buddhas. usually did not. A number of Central Tibetan painters
To attain a uniform coat of the deepest blue, a painter seemed actually to disapprove of the wide use of wet
sometimes had to apply the paint as many as three shading in thangkas, even though in mural painting they
times, each time touching up the areas of insufficient considered it perfectly acceptable.
coverage. The deepest of blues was also the coarsest Except for the difficulties of shading the sky and
of colours, and some painters said that it required more landscape, the initial application of colour was among
size in the binder. 3 the easiest steps in the painting of a thangka. The
Next came the areas of medium blue, such as the painting in of flat areas of colour was one of the first
water in the landscape. The lowest levels of the water tasks that a master might entrust to a novice; the master
areas were sometimes begun in a deeper blue if the himself was thereby freed to devote his time to the more
whole area was to be wet·shaded. Our main informants, demanding tasks of shading and, especially, outlining.
however, normally applied a medium blue underc.oat Even so the painter of the first coats of colour, whether
first, and later shaded these areas using the dry-shading master or novice, had to exercise a certain amount of
method. The last of the blues to be applied were the care, particularly when painting the outside edges of
lightest values, and these were applied to such places as each area. The paint had to cover the area completely,
certain jewels and textiles. but of course it was also important not to let it spill
over into adjoining colour areas. A simple method for
The Application of Greens applying paint accurately to a given area was first to
apply a stroke to the middle of the area, and then to ftil
The simplest "landscape" consisted only of an empty in around the edges using strokes that moved in general
green field in the foreground that faded into the from the middle outward and from the top downward.
horizon. For painting this the artist employed one of the By the time the edges were reached there was no danger
above techniques for creating gradations, but here he of excess paint spilling over the borders and the edge of
began at the bottom and worked up. Painting his deeper the brush tip could be used to execute sharp and exact
green on the bottom edge of the painting area he borders. Darker colours were especially difficult to
effected a gradual lightening of the green as he worked correct if they overlapped a lighter area. Some
upwards. in this simplest of backgrounds the lightest corrections could be made by immediately wetting the
green would fade into an indistinct horizon where it paint and blotting it with a brush, and as a last resort
met the similarly painted skyline. But if the landscape the artist could scrape off dry paint down to the white
had clearly demarcated hills, crags, water and so forth, ground by using a very sharp blade.
gradations of colour were applied to the green hills or In addition to basic accuracy in application, it
meadows working from top to bottom as in the sky. was also desirable to apply the paints in coats as thin as
Many painters coloured the tops of each hill a medium would still give good coverage. In the usual Central
green, and gradually faded out this colour into a paler Tibetan "full-colour" (rdzogs tshon) method this meant
green as the bottom was reached. Following the com- the thinnest opaque coat. For this purpose, and in
pletion of the large green areas in the landscape, the general, the painter as he worked had to be sure to keep
artist filled in the other green areas, first the deepest the paint at its optimum consistency.
hues and finally the lightest green.

Hand Supports
The Application of the Remaining Colours
In order to. increase their control while painting, the
After the greens there came the application of the reds, artists of Tibet traditionally used certain techniques
oranges, and so forth, as outlined above. When the artists for steadying both their "canvas" and their painting
had finished colouring all of the red areas within the hands. To begin with, most painters worked with the
composition, some of them also laid down a red border stretcher propped upright in their laps or just in front
outside the outer edge of the whole painting. (Other of their crossed legs, the top of the stretcher being
painters applied this border after the initial base coats of tilted slightly away from them. When working on the

THE APPLICATION OF COLOUR 99