Kalamkari Painting

Kalamkari is an exquisite ancient craft of painted and printed fabrics. Kalamkari literally means, Kalam - pen & kari - work, i.e., art work done using a pen. The artists use a bamboo or date palm stick pointed at one end with a bundle of fine hair attached to this pointed end to serve as the brush or pen. Vegetable dyes are used on cloth to color the drawings. The dyes are obtained by extracting colours from parts of plants - roots, leaves along with mineral salts of iron, tin, copper, alum, etc., which are used as mordants.

Kalamkari Painting widly consists Hindu mythlogical themes from epics like Ramayana, Mahabharata, Srimad Bhagwat and Puranas. The unique thing about these painting is that no two panels are similar. Vegetable and mineral pigments are used to create these paintings. The specialty is that the finished products are mellow.  Bright colours are used but the finish is not gaudy.