Page 130 - Tibetan Thangka Painting Methodsand Mat, Jackson

achieved a much more craggy and irregular effect: the crags, so it was useful to begin by sketching in the
contours of the crags if they were not visible through the
undercoat of paint. For the actual shading, Wangdrak
employed single dyes or combinations of dyes, depend-
ing on the particular design and base colour. On rocks of
pale blue backgrounds it was usual to see him employing
indigo alone. Here, as for all rocks in this style, he
This painter also used other basic shapes for building shaded the outer edges and let the inner areas remain
rocks. The more intricate and irregular the basic shapes, the lighter colour of the undercoat. For shading ochre-
the more random they would appear in combination, brown crags a thin wash of indigo worked well, for in
while with simple shapes the opposite was true. For combination with the ochre the indigo looked almost
instance: like a wash of ink.

Multicolour Shading
Over the pale yellow undercoats, however, Wangdrak
usually applied a variety of shading dyes. One
combination was to alternate blue and green in bands
just inside the edges of the crags. Another method was
Wangdrak always began his colouring of rocks by to apply alternating green and blue as above, but to add
applying a single base colour, usually ochre brown, pale a thin red wash to some of the exposed inner areas of
yellow or pale blue. the yellow undercoat and to the small niches in the
crags. Because the undercoat was yellow, the red washes
Monochromatic Shading
produced an orange result. This set up a contrast with
Shading followed the precise outlines of the layers of the nearby green and blue areas.

Example of granular or dabbed-on shading from a thangka by Dorje Gyaltshen.

126 SHADING AND COLOUR GRADAnON