Page 116 - Tibetan Thangka Painting Methodsand Mat, Jackson

Thus, even in the relatively simple matter of tions allow the classification of shading into at least
tinting the sky the artists had a considerable range of three further types:
techniques available to them. It. should be noted,.
however, that the last two of the above shading types I) Shading using gradual transitions upon a base of
were not commonly employed by Central Tibetan artists uniform colour. This was the usual type, employed
in the painting of thangkas. In modern thangka painting for example on meadows, back curtains and some
we have only seen the "spread-on" and "granular" clouds and flowers.
shadings. Our main informants seldom used any but the
2) Shading upon a two-toned area. Some flowers and
first of these methods. Wangdrak for instance knew of
both "smooth shading" (leb mdangs, his term for clouds, for instance, had middle sections receiving
slightly darker undercoat colours.
"spread-on shading") and "dotted shading" (gtsag
mdangs, his term for "granular shading"), but by and 3) Secondary dry shading on an area that had already
large he used only the first of these. (He also had a term been shaded by the wet-shading method. Some
for the finest dry shading applied as a final step over the painters used this method for shading skies, as
usual "flat shading." It was khra 'drud, literally "pulling mentioned above.
out the glossiest," a term also used to denote the
selection of the best hair or wool.) The painter Dorje Finally, we should also mention two further
Gyaltshen, by contrast, commonly used both the spread- elaborations of shading technique. The first of these was
on shading (calling it gsed mdangs "carded shading" or the shading of an area where the application of the dye
"smoothed shading") and the granular shading (calling was preceded by the- drawing of an intermediate sketch
it gtsag mdangs, "poked shading" or "dotted shading"). on the undercoat. Wangdrak, for instance, outlined
The latter technique he applied to green areas such as many of the blue and green areas with indigo before
hills and meadows. shading them with the same dye. But for most of the
areas to be shaded with lac dye he did not employ an
Diluting the Dye with Water intermediate sketch (bar bris). In most cases such
intermediate sketching was not essential because the
Another possibility open to the painter was to combine artist could either see the preliminary drawing through
the application of dry-shading dyes with diluting strokes the undercoat, or could mentally reconstruct the sketch
of water. Some painters preferred this technique by referring to the outer form of the object.
particularly for the shading of small areas. As an The second special shading technique was a variety
example we may describe how the artist l.egdrub of dry shading applied to bodily figures to give them the
Gyatsho shaded the small body nimbus behind a minor appearance of fullness. The technique consisted of the
goddess. application of bands of dark dye to "model" the flesh.
He had begun the painting of the nimbus by This could be called "contouring" because the artist
applying a red undercoat. The object of the subsequent mainly applied these bands around the borders of
shading was to create a gradual transition of colour anatomical areas. The technique was especially impor-
within a short space, darkening the outer edges of the tant in the shading of dark-coloured deities.
nimbus but leaving the areas nearest to the goddess the
original red.
To begin the shading the artist applied some dark The Dyes Used in Shading
tinting colour (here using a reddish-brown dye) in a solid
band around the outer edge of the red nimbus. Then he For shading and outlining, few mineral pigments were
applied a series of small brush strokes of dye parallel to used. Instead, the main shading colours were organic
the outer band, making them further apart as he pro- dyes and lakes, and of these the two most important
ceeded inward. When he had applied sufficient colour he were indigo and lac dye.
wetted the brush with water, and with this diluting
brush (chu pir) he applied a series of thinning strokes Indigo (rams)
to the area of the transition. Beginning in the middle of
the gradation, he worked inward, and by diluting the
innermost strokes of dye he caused the darker tint to
disappear into the background colour in a smooth
transition.

Further Varieties of Shading

The painters added yet another dimension to shading by Indigo is a dark blue dyestuff that until about 1900 was
combining the dry-shading and dilution-shading effects obtained entirely from plants (mainly of the genus
with the different types of undercoats. Such combina- Indigofera). At the turn of the century, however, a

112 SHADING AND COLOUR GRADATION