Page 134 - Tibetan Thangka Painting Methodsand Mat, Jackson

nimbuses and jewels, and so forth. The reason for using drawing of so many other designs in Tibetan art, here it
indigo in the latter cases was that lac dye, being itself a was a matter of first establishing the main divisions of
deep reddish shade, could not provide enough contrast the pattern and then filling in the intermediate details.
when applied over a vermilion or maroon area. Finally, For white outlines and finishing details the
we should note that the artists also outlined a few white painters used their ordinary white paint, here made just
objects with indigo, such as white robes, draperies and thin enough for fine application. But when painting the
ornamental scarves. bone ornaments of white tantric deities or c;lakil).ls, a
little yellow or ochre was mixed into the white so that
Lac Dye the resulting yellowish-white details would stand out
against the white base colour of the bodies.
Lac dye was used as an outlining colour mainly around
those areas that had been shaded with the same dye. Gold
This meant that most areas with base coats of warm
colours were outlined with this colour, the main In most paintings gold was used much more frequently
exceptions being the deeper vermilions and maroons as than white. Like white, it was applied after the indigo
mentioned above. Also outlined with lac dye were many and lac-dye outlining, because both white and gold were
white areas and areas painted with gold. A particularly used for details that lay on top of the surrounding areas
important application of lac-dye outlining was to the in the composition. Gold ornaments, for instance,
bodies, faces and limbs of all figures except those that had to be painted over the limbs or bodies of the deities,
had been painted blue, green or vermilion. which by this point should have already been completed
through outlining.
White Gold had a wide variety of applications in
outlining and linear details. For simple outlining, the
In addition to the two main dyes, several other colours artists commonly laid down one or more lines of gold
were also used for painting linear details. These colours inside and parallel to the outer dark outlines of such
were applied after the ordinary outlining, and one of the objects as nimbuses, seats, flower leaves, robes, multi-
most important of them was white. coloured lotuses and rocky crags. Sometimes the gold
lines were applied in a thin line just inside and con-
Water tiguous to the dark dye outline, but usually the artists
White was indispensable for putting the finishing
touches on water, primarily to give waves their final
outline. The artists applied lines of white next to the
dark indigo outlines of waves that had already been
painted. Often they applied the white lines (dkar bead)
just beneath the indigo, especially on surface waves..
In the painting of minor waves lower down, however,
the white lines often appeared above the indigo. Finally,
the artists used white to paint in small ripples and
bubbles on the surface of the water.
Bone Ornaments
The painting of the small bone ornaments of
tantric deities was another important application of
white line drawings. Here white was not used for out·
lining per se, but rather for the actual drawing of these
details. The. bone ornaments of large deities were
sketched and painted in individual sections that then
required final outlining with lac dye. But for small
figures the bone ornaments were too fine to be depicted
in this way, and therefore these ornaments were
executed by means of simple white line drawings. For
deities of'medium sizes a middle course was also
possible; the thicker bone ornaments such as the main
elements of bone aprons were painted in full detail,
complete with lac-dye outlining, while the smaller
ornaments, such as bracelets, armlets and anklets, were
painted freehand without a preliminary sketch. Expert Wangdrak applying radiating gold lines to. a figure's
artists experienced no particular difficulty when painting body nimbus. The cloth, held between his last two
such complicated bone ornaments in this way. As in the fingers, protects the painting.

130 OUTLINING