TechniqueA patta painter's home with all the members of family is his studio. Woman members prepare the glue, the canvas and apply colours what we call the fill-in, and give the final lacquer coating. The master hand, mostly the male member, draws the initial line and gives the final finishing.
Patta paintings are done on small strips of cotton cloth. The canvas is prepared by coating the clothe with a mixture of chalk and gum made from tamarind seeds. Then it is rubbed by taking the help of two different stones and then the cloth is dried. The mixture of gum and chalk gives the cloth's surface a leathery finish on which the artists paint with vegetable, earth and stone colours. The painters do not use pencil or charcoal for the preliminary drawings. They are so expert in the line that they simply draw directly with the brush either in light red or yellow. Then the colours are filled in. The final lines are drawn and the patta is given a lacquer coating to protect it from weather, thus making the painting glossy. This process of glazing or varnishing is quite interesting. The painting is held over a fire-place so that the back of the painting is exposed to heat. On the surface of the painting fine lacquer is applied.
The painters use vegetable and mineral colours without going for factory made poster colours. They prepare their own colours. White colour is made from the conch-shells by powdering, boiling and filtering in a very hazardous process. It requires a lot of patience. But this process gives brilliance and premanence to the hue. 'Hingula', a mineral colour, is used for red. 'Haritala', king of stone ingredients for yellow, 'Ramaraja' a sort of indigo for blue are being used. Pure lamp-black or black prepared from the burning of cocoanut shells are used. There was no blue either cobalt or ultramarine in the earlier colour schemes. The colours used in the Patta paintings are primarily bright colours, limited to red, yellow, indigo, black and white. The brushes that are used by these 'Chitrakaras' are also indigenous and are made of hair of domestic animals. A bunch of hair tied to the end of a bamboo stick make the brush. It is really a matter of wonder as to how these painters bring out lines of such precision and finish with the help of thesecrude brushes.
Patta paintings, otherwise known as icon paintings, attract thousands of pilgrims who flock to Puri round the year. Their patronage has helped in the survival of this beautiful art. No art should remain static. The 'Chitrakaras' of Patta paintings go on repeating the same themes in a stereotyped manner and style. Patta painting has almost become a repetitious art or more correctly a sort of craft. This should not be. The painters must emerge out of this state of 'limbo'by adding some novelty to their theme, style,colour schemes and mode of expression.
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