Swarag - Colorful Expressions

colors, elaborate ornamentation, elegant outline, depiction of volume through subtle shading, a strong sense of design and well defined figures. Madhubani ( Madhu - honey, bani - forest)

Is a Indian folk art practiced in Mithila, birth place of lord Krishna. Painting is done with fingers, twigs, brushes, nib-pens, and matchsticks, using natural dyes and pigments, and is characterized by eye-catching geometrical patterns. Traditionally this art was practised by women only to decorate their huts during religious and important occasions. Nowadays men have also taken up this artform and paintings are done on paper, cloth, canvas etc. The colors used were traditionally derived from natural sources like plants, charcoal soot, ochre etc. Black color is obtained by mixing soot with cow dung.Yellow color is obtained from turmeric or pollen or lime and the milk of banyan leaves. Blue from Indigo. Red from Kusum flower juice, red sandalwood or rose. Green from the leaves of apple trees, White from rice powder, Orange from palasha flowers.