Design tradition
A worker dips a pen or kalam in vegetable dyes, and then puts it to fabric to draw intricate free hand designs on the fabric. Most of these design themes are drawn from Indian mythology. This unique art of Kalamkari is intimately linked with cotton and the lives of the people of Sri kalahasti in Andhra Pradesh.
This ancient craft used to drape the gods, involves as many as 17 stages of labour with cloth being washed at every step. A variety of natural products like buffalo's milk and dung are used to make the cloth sturdy and for bleaching.
Not far away, Chirala, Puttapaka and Ponchampalli in Andhra Pradesh are known for the tradition of Telia Rumal. The word telia means oil while rumal means handkerchief or a square cloth. Traditionally, fishermen and the nobility used these cloths as turbans or loincloths. In Puttapaka, rich Muslim families patronised the 20 families involved in this craft.
The telia rumal themes mainly consist of grids and small geometric designs or figurative work and sometimes even include modern images of airplanes or early record players. The colours, mostly red, pink or purple, are made from alizarin, iron or indigo and numerous vegetable oils.
Rajasthan, is known for its Bandhini tradition, a tie and dye technique, where the cloth is tied up in thousands of small knots. The fabric is then dyed and the ties, which remain undyed, are removed to reveal the design. Sanganeri tradition of Rajasthan is popular in Sanganer, Bagaru, Bassi, Kaladera, Jaipur, Jairam Jahota and Sawai Madhopur. The craftsmen dye the fabric with wooden stamp blocks dipped in natural colours. The dyestuff alizarin, obtained from wood of Aal, yields red and black colours, predominant in the designs. The wood was earlier obtained from the mountainous regions but is today imported in powder form from France.
Ikat is a more complicated design prevalent in Gujarat, Orissa and ap. The fabric's warp, weft or both are tie-dyed before weaving, which creates designs on the finished fabric. Care is taken in tying resist areas with water repellent material such as bicycle inner tubes cut into strips. The precision of the wrapping determines the clarity of the design. When the finished product is unwrapped, the cloth under the ties has stayed the original colour.
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