Warli Painting

The first time I saw a Warli painting it was on the walls of conference room at National College, I was fascinated, it told a remarkable story with just line, circles and triangles. I was attending a Vedanta lecture of Jaya Row but my mind kept drifting back to those lines and curves and my vision traced the movements transporting me to another world. I wanted to try that painting on my own, and did few on photo-shop but painting is altogether a different experience.

The pared down pictorial language is matched by a rudimentary techniques. The ritual Warli painting are usually done inside the huts by tribal women, especially during festivals. The walls are made of a mixture of branches, earth and cow dung, making red ochre background for the wall painting. The Warli use only white color for their painting. Their white pigment is the mixture of rice paste and water with gum as binding. They use bamboo stick chewed at the end to make it supple as a paintbrush.  The central ritual in these painting is what they see in their surroundings portraying hunting, fishing and farming, festivals and dances.

So, this Saturday, I decided to attend a workshop to learn the proper technique,

I was expecting just 2-3 people, but was surprised to see more than 20 people. After the initial introduction the workshop began.

We were given the kit that contained white and brown acrylic paints; few paint brushes, one small piece of cloth for painting,

We made few sketches using simple strokes of lines, circles, triangles and squares. Warli painting are mainly monosyllabic. The circle and the triangle come from their observation of nature: the circle representing the sun, and the moon, while the triangle derived from mountains and pointed trees. Only square seems to obey different logic and seems to be human invention, indicating the secret enclosure or piece of land.

After the basic stroke, I decided on wedding procession and sketched a scene.

Next was to give a wash of brown color on the cloth to give a background and trace my sketch on it.

It was interesting to see everybody with their own imagination, drawing human, animals and plants and different designs.

I completed half the painting in the class.

And the rest of the painting, I completed at home

Warli painting is an important part of the Warli tribe people’s culture.  The warlis carry on this tradition stretching back to 2500BC. Their mural painting are similar to those done between 500 and 10,000BCE in the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, in Madhya Pradesh. It is become so popular that it has now been appreciated all over the world, and the one that kept me busy today, will find a place on the wall of my house for sure……

I truly enjoyed doing this one…….such satisfaction of having created something, so beautiful….

then, printing them on a post card and sending it off to my friends........

There is a beautiful site on more Warli designs, and am fascinated by the various mediums where this art could be used.

Enamel Paintings

Last week I had the pleasure of viewing an exhibition of enamel painting. I enjoy such exhibitions and I am sure even the students attending art colleges would have enjoyed this exhibition.

My friend had attended the 15-days workshop of enamel painting and mastered some basic skills of this art. On her return she poured out all her experiences, recalling moments that she shared  with other professional painter.


This got me interested.

It has been long time since I have painted and but listening to her enthusiasm, I was inspired, sat craving for paints and brushes again and may start one painting in oils soon.

The enamel painting is kind of different from other paintings, because it has a different approach. Colored powder is used to make designs on a metal, then fired in a strong furnace for 2 minutes for powder to melt and give it a glossy finish. Friend says there is surprise element at every stage and the painting has to be done in stages, like layer after layer, each time painting a little, introducing it into the furnace for the powder to melt and hoping to get the desired effect.

My friend is a good artist and has made many oils and water colors too, so during the workshop, her artistically done enamel painting was quite good and few of them were exhibited at Tao Art Gallery at Worli.

This one was done by my friend and exhibited at the gallery. with just two colors, black and white, it made quite an impact.

I had liked this one which is kind of abstract concentric circles, superimposed one above another creating a beautiful design, he must have used many layers to get this effect.

I was especially impressed by this girl, who was to be able to wear her own creations. Such a proud moment when people ask her "Did you design this?" and she lowers her eyes, looks once again at her locket and smiles saying "Yes, I did"

I liked this painting for its choice of its bright colors, shading it a bit, surrounding it with black net giving it a butterfly effect.

This one was my favorite and I liked this the best. The center semicircular gold ball was quite impressive with the balance of identical designs on its four sides.

There were many more, some of them in set of three, complimenting each other exhibited side by side. 

Every design had different effect and some of them must have surprised the owner too, because the results are some times very different from what the artist had imagined.


Some of them so beautiful that one can stand back and admire it again and again.