Page 120 - Tibetan Thangka Painting Methodsand Mat, Jackson

Shading Washes Derived from Mineral Pigments which was the most distant plane, was also the first to
be shaded. Later, during the main shading that followed
To achieve a particular tinting effect a painter would the application of the flat pigments, the artists
sometimes also employ thin washes of mineral colours. commonly began their shading by working on the other
For example, where an artist wished to execute a distant elements in the landscape, such as the clouds in
gradation of orange to white on a jewel he could do so the sky and the green meadows and hills below. For
by applying some thin surface water (kha chu) of paint tinting the green, meadow-covered hills (spang ri) the
made from minium over the white background. Thin painters usually shaded from the hilltops downward,
washes of vermilion and other pigments were similarly using thin washes of green paints. A more varied effect
used; vermilion washes were used over base colours of was obtained by applying washes of alternating colours.
yellow or orange in depictions of flames, and brown The painter Wangdrak, for instance, used to tint his
paints were used for shading the animal skins worn by hilltops in some thangkas with alternating washes of
wrathful and yi-dam deities, and the antelope, deer, brighter (kha gsal ba) and darker (kha nag pa) greens.
leopard and tiger skin mats on which some figures were The result was that some hills had yellowish hilltops,
seated. Some painters on occasion even created tran- and others were a more bluish green. But as before, one
sitions of value by applying light-coloured washes over of the main considerations was to use as much of one
dry darker base coats. Such artists employed this colour at one time as possible, to avoid having to waste
technique, for example, to lighten the tips of the small time preparing the same colour many times. Therefore,
jewels commonly found as decorative details in the if the artist began to shade with a bluish-green wash he
landscape. The painting of such small objects was thus would usually apply it to as many areas as he could
an instance where the general dark-over-light progression before he went on to, say, the yellowish-green paint.
for dry shading was not observed.
The Shading of Particular Objects

The Application of Shading Dyes Beautifully shaded clouds, flowers and so forth were,
like beautifully painted faces, a hallmark of a master
Which of the dyes and lakes the painter used and how painter. All artists knew various shortcuts in shading
and where he applied them depended little upon that speeded up the whole process, but a painstaking
personal preference and mainly on the force of acquired artist doing an important commission would usually
habit. As with so much of Tibetan painting technique, linger over the shading for a long time. In old Tibet an
most of the conventions of shading were established for artist often expended several months, and sometimes
the painter by the lineage of artistic practice he had even up to a year, on one major painting. As one painter
inherited from his teacher. informed us, it was especially the detailed dry shading
that used to take so long. Nowadays, of course, nobody
The Relation of Dye Colour to Undercoat can spare the time needed to create the exquisite "year-
thangbs" (10 thang) as before, but dry shading con-
Long ago artists had discovered that it was best to shade tinues to take up a large portion of an artist's time.
areas of blue and green with indigo, and this practice In the following pages we will describe some of the
survived among modern Tibetan artists. 14 Lac dye or techniques used for shading particular objects in the
lake, by contrast, was best suited for painting over areas painting - objects that still receive careful treatment
of red, maroon, orange, yellow or flesh colour. White from the masters.
areas could be shaded with either indigo or lac dye, but
tradition decreed which objects should be shaded with Clouds
one and which with the other. Yellows were mainly
restricted to highlighting and intensifying greens. The There were two main types of clouds in thangka
artists who used red sandalwood for the most part painting: (1) low mists that hugged the tops of low
employed it for dark shading over reds and browns. green hills, and (2) clouds floating high in the
Laid down in thin washes, a few painters substituted atmosphere or encircling lofty snow mountains.
it for lac dye in some applications.
Low Clouds
Shading Order The low-lying mists were the simplest in terms of both
design and shading. The artists usually drew them as
No ironclad rules determined the order of dye repetitive series of lobed puffs that rose into the sky
application for the painter. But just as certain principles from behind a grassy hill. Often too, these clouds or
had influenced the order of pigment application, so here mists were depicted as having two layers; there was a
several practical considerations, such as the desire for series of smaller, lower vapo"r puffs in front, backed by a
maximum efficiency, guided the procedure. repeating series of multi-lobed clouds behind each
As noted above, in laying down the main coats smaller one.
of pigment the artists generally worked from the rear The technique for shading these clouds was often
planes of the composition forward. Accordingly the sky, simple dry shading. The object of the shading was to

116 SHADING AND COLOUR GRADAnON