Patachitra- Pride of Orissa

Already I have written about Patachitra in my earlier post. In this post sharing about the process of making patachitra and the designs and motifs used in Patachitra.
The Patachitra are made on Palm leaf strips joined with stitches.
Here you can see the one I have,

The theme in this Patachitra is Shri Krishna and Dashavatara pictures. The pictures are engraved on the palm leaf.
Here you can see the engraved picture, closely.

 

The middle picture is of Krishna and Radha, the surrounding motifs are of Dashavatara( 10 reincarnation  of Shri Vishnu) . Here are the beautiful motifs:

The borders are normally have geometrical motifs or floral designs.

Floral borders:

Geometrical border:

The Patachitra is also done on clothes. Before making the painting the cloth is bonded with gum made of tamarind powder to hold the paint properly.After applying the tamarind paste the cloth is dried in sun. Once dried rubbed on both the sides with stone first and then with smooth pebble. Then the design is painted on the cloth with natural dyes.
Here is a colorful Patachitra.

Each Patachitra is painted so intricately that, every painting shows the effort of the artist. Its not only just a decorative painting, Patachtra has a role in some rituals performed in temple of Puri.
I'm really happy to share about this unique art which is part of diversity of India.

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana

Shri Krishna - Inspiration to many Arts and Crafts

Today is Shri Krishna Janmashtami. Lord Krishna considered as Great Philosopher, Management Guru, the person who whole heartedly  tried for the betterment of society etc. But for the art lovers like us he is always inspiration for different kinds of arts and crafts. I always like to design with Krishna theme. Sharing some of the arts and crafts pieces created by me using Krishna theme.

The below one is a oil painting depicting first touch of Krishna and Radha

 

About this painting I have already written in one of my posts - Touch of Krishna - Oil Painting

And recently included the Krishna theme in jewels designed :

 

This has a beautiful  hand painted Radha-Krishna pendant with many pearl strands. Without Radha , anything related to Krishna is not complete.

 Below is the one with a pendant hand painted, with two strands of semi precious beads.

This one is again Radha Krishna hand painted pendant , with semi precious bead strands.

These and many more hand crafted jewels you can view in our page : Pranjalika Collections
Planning to paint a saree with Krishna theme. Will share about that in coming posts.
In my previous post shared about Patachitra Paintings , in next post share about the process behind making of Patachitra.

Until then, 

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana

Patachitra- Paintings that narrate stories- Pride of Orissa

It has been more than 2 months , I haven't written any post. Missed all the posts written by my blogger friends. Life was hectic for few days, till now its the same, but could not stay away from blogosphere for long. I had many plans - like writing about sarees of India, different arts ad crafts of world, different kind of jewels etc. But could not. Thought  let me start with this post.
Its always been my wish to visit craftsmen of different places and have a close look of their works, how the arts and crafts have become their life etc.I consider myself lucky that I had got chance to visit some of the craftsmen and see their works. Hope I will get some more chances to view the works of the craftsmen at their places. Still crafts lovers like me get such chances when we visit some craft fest or exhibition. Recently I got such opportunity when I visited a craft fest. I could see many crafts from exhibitors from all over India, will share about all in my posts. In this post sharing about Patachithra painting - a traditional painting from Orissa.
Patachitra derives from two Sanskrit words- Pata means canvas and Chitra means painting. Though most of the paintings are made depending on stories of Mahabharatha and Ramayana, the popular ones are of paintings of Lord Jagannath, like the below one.

 

 Below one is depicting story of Ramayana,

 

The middle of the painting is crowning ceremony of Shri Rama ( Hindu God). And the surrounding the centre picture there is series of pictures depicting stories of Ramayana. The painting has a border. The borders are of two types , geometrical or floral.

There is a special process for making the canvas and to paint. There are different motifs which are used in the paintings. Also I want o boast about the Patachithra I own, but all in the next post.

Until then, 

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana