Tanjore Painting - art of creating it

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Art of Creating Tanjore Paintings
These paintings are remarkable in its step-by-step creation from the actual canvas board to the final touches. Adorned with rubies, diamonds and other precious gemstones, and trimmed with gold foil, Tanjore paintings were actually speaking-- treasures. Nowadays, however semi precious stones are used in place of real ones, but the use of gold foil has not altered.

The 'canvas' for a Tanjore painting is usually a plank of wood over which a layer of cloth is pasted. The cloth is coated with lime paste and smoothened by rubbing with a smooth stone till the overlay is smooth, levelled and even. Now, the canvas is ready for painting.

On this canvas, the artist draws a detailed pencil-sketch.

Layers of paste made from glue (obtained from neem trees) and limestone are moulded and applied on the canvas to create a three-dimensional effect in embellishing and ornamentating a theme.

Selected gems of varies hues, are inlaid onto this layer of paste. Gold leaves are affixed on selected areas. The shine and glean on the gold leaves used by the tanjore style paintings, will last forever.
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yoko