Young Gond artists of undivided Adilabad district were exposed to the art of extracting natural colours from vegetables at the annual Deepotsav festival at the Kala Ashram here.
Pattachitra artists Baharun and Chiranjeet Chitrokar from Naya village in West Midnapore district of West Bengal, also attending the three-day festival, demonstrated the basic technique for making green, red, black, brown and orange colours using beetroot tuber, carrot, raw turmeric, leaves of broad beans, aloevera, stone apple (bael fruit or aegle marmelos) and soot from the silencer of vehicles.
“We have our own technique of making natural dyes but the knowledge is almost gone. It is good to learn new things,” said Madavi Rajeshwar, who leads the group of Gond painters.
Explaining the method, Chiranjeet cut the vegetables into slices and dried them for a few minutes before grinding them on a piece of stone. He extracted the juices out of the beet and the carrot separately and added the sap of stone apple order to make the colour sticky.
While the beet produced red, the juice from the carrot was mixed with a little turmeric to produce orange. The soot was used to make black colour and the leaf of the broad beans helped them achieve a bottle green colour.
The Bengal artist duo explained that the colours can be used on canvas and displayed their work on canvas made using natural colours.
At present, the Gond artists use acrylic colours on canvas. “This knowledge can help us paint with natural colours,” Mr. Rajeshwar hoped.
A group of 20 Adivasi artists have been trained by the Tribal Welfare Department at workshops held over the last few months. They have churned out over 50 beautiful paintings which will soon adorn the walls of Collectorates across the State.