The Paaruls and Palash were introduced to the Chittara art
form through a two day workshop at Shibumi.
Chittara is a folk art form practised by the women of Deewaru community
living close to Jog Falls in Shimoga, Karnataka. CFRIA (Centre for Revival of
Indigenous Art) is a non-profit organisation that is committed towards
preserving and Indigenous Art practices in India. We had Geetha Bhat, from
CFRIA, as the facilitator and Lakshmakka, who is from the Deewaru community,
introducing the kids to this art form. We started off with an introduction to ’Hase
Gode Chittara’. The motifs used in
Chittara are geometric and mainly lines. Hase Gode Chittara represents a
marriage ceremony in the community. The drawing of the Chittara itself is part
of the ceremony. The colours used in
Chittara are red, white, black and yellow. For white, ground rice paste is used;
roasted rice for black, yellow seeds (Gurige), red earth and the brushes are
made up of pundi naaru.
The children started to learn by drawing the basic shapes
that go into making a chittara. This took almost the whole of day one. The kids
were fascinated that simple things like mango leaves, hand fan, clay pot, bird,
hand saw, and not so simple things like bride, groom, palanquin, musicians etc
can all be drawn using simple straight lines!
On the second day, we went on to the main thing which was
drawing an actual Hase Gode Chittara on hand made paper. It involved lots and
lots of measuring. Everything had to be precise!
The kids got tired of measuring. They were eager to get to
the end of the drawing and do the painting.
We used acrylic paint for our paintings. It was not at all easy using
those brushes to paint straight lines. Lakshmakka made the brushes from pundi
naaru. These are really thin brushes made from the fibre of a plant that grows
on the banks of a river. We found that using those brushes made the lines
straight J
During the painting, Lakshmakka sang for us. In their
tradition, the women usually sing when they are painting. It was beautiful.
The two day workshop ended with a presentation and display
of all the work that the children had done.
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| Lines are drawn .... ready to paint |
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| White lines on red paper |
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| black lines on white paper |
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| Beloved Lakshmakka... |
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| A sample 'Hasegode Chittara' |
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| Sharing our learning with the rest of Shibumi |
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