Page 53 - Tibetan Thangka Painting Methodsand Mat, Jackson

These and the subsequent steps of sketching will be most parts of the thangka. Nowadays, however, many
described below in more detail, following an account painters have abandoned home-made charcoal crayons,
of the other tools and techniques involved. and use Western-style graphite pencils exclusively.
Charcoal (sol ba) Sketching Individual Figures

For his preliminary sketches a Tibetan painter To sketch the figures in a thangka the painter needed
traditionally used charcoal crayons. A sketch made in an exact knowledge of the measurements and propor-
charcoal (sol ris) was easy to rub off, and this was both tions (thig tshad) of each deity as established by
an asset and a drawback; mistakes could be easily erased Buddhist iconometry and artistic practice. The pantheon
by rubbing the sketch lightly, but any accidental of Tibetan Buddhism has literally hundreds of different
brushing against the canvas with the hand or sleeve deities, and no master painter could know all their
would inadvertently erase part of the finished sketch. proportions, configurations and characteristics. Still,
To compensate for this, an artist when sketching he had to be familiar with the main iconometric classes
generally worked from top to bottom, after first sketch- into which the pantheon was divided, and he had to be
ing the central figure. Some painters when sketching able to apply this knowledge correctly to the individual
wore a small leather sheath over the little finger of their deities that he painted.
drawing hand. In addition to protecting the finger when An important part of every novice's training was
sketching on rough surfaces, this leather sheath acted as the time spent under the guidance of a teacher,
an eraser; the artist could brush off any mistakes in the repeatedly copying examples of Buddhas and bodhisatt-
sketch with a few quick flicks of his little finger. vas. When doing so, the student was required first to
Many Tibetan painters used to make their own construct a grid of exactly positioned lines (thig khang),
charcoal crayons. They mainly used willow (lcang rna) and then to draw within it the sacred figure. Through
wood, often splitting and whittling down large pieces of the endless repetition of these actions, the proportions
it. In areas where willow was scarce, tamarisk (spen rna) and shapes of each major figure became firmly impressed
twigs were used in its place. Larger sizes were prepared upon his mind so that later he could construct perfectly
for sketching murals, while thin sticks were best for proportioned figures with only a minimum of guidelines
thangka painting and other detailed applications. and measures. After the painter had mastered the basic
To make the raw sticks into charcoal the artist proportions he could apply this knowledge by analogy
roasted them in a hot bed of coals in the absence of air. to unfamiliar deities, once he had determined their
For this some artists first packed the sticks tightly into iconometric class.
an almost airtight metal tube (tight packing eliminated
much of the potential warping). The tube, its ends
sometimes sealed with clay, was then put into a bed of
coals and heated for two hours or more, depending on
the heat of the fire. After the correct amount of heating
the wood became transformed into light-weight charcoal
sticks that made a "ting" sound when dropped onto a
solid surface. These could be sharpened and used
immediately.
Other artists used even simpler techniques for
making charcoal crayons. Some merely packed a bundle
of willow twigs in clay, and when the clay had dried
they placed the mass into a bed of coals. This method is
still used in parts of the Nepal Himalayas. Wangdrak
(like several others) used to begin by wrapping a bundle
of willow sticks in paper and string. Then he prepared
his hot bed of coals, digging a trough in its center and
packing down the edges. Next he laid the bundle of
sticks in the trough, and then covered it with coals
which he firmly tamped down. Smoke seeping out was a
warning that air was reaching the twigs and thus allowing
their oxidation and destruction. To prevent this he
would pour a little fine dirt into the hole from which
the smoke was emerging, until no more was visible.
Then after about two or three hours he carefully dug out
the bundle and deposited it in a soft bed of earth he had
prepared nearby. After covering the blackened bundle
with a layer of light earth he allowed it to cool.
Such charcoal was an ideal medium for sketching Pencil sketch of Padmasambhava by Wangdrak.

THE SKETCH 49