In ancient times, groups of singers, musicians and painters, called Chitrakattis, moved from one village to another to tell the village dwellers, the great stories of Hindu mythology. Progressively, during the course of history, they illustrated their accounts using large bolts of canvas painted on the spot with rudimentary means and dyes extracted from plants. Thus, the first Kalamkari had been born.
Is it the designs, the dyeing process, or the natural dyes? I personally think it’s a combination of all these factors that makes handpainted Sri Kalahasti Kalamkari so special.
Kalamkari is completely handmade and painted using a pen, involving as many as 17 steps; traditional pen Kalamkari uses dyes made from natural materials. A slow, involved and vigorous process, making one Kalamkari sari can take about 20 days. Each step in the process prepares the cloth for the next step, hand painted and then treated for the next step. Experienced artisans are able to change the treatment depending on the colours and quality needed.
All tools and raw materials used in the production of Kalamkari are handmade and use natural materials.
- The Kalam used to paint is a pen made of bamboo reed, with a cloth rolled over it and secured with cotton thread. Typically, there are 2 types of Kalams: one for drawing the outlines and the other for filling colours.
- The cotton cloth used for the fabric printing is locally called as Gaada. This cloth is washed and treated to avoid the natural colour from spreading.
- Vegetable dyes like Myrobalan (Terminalia Chebula) / Karakapuvvu and Myrobalan bud / Karakapinde are used to make the black dye permanent.
- All shades involved in the Kalamkari process are renewable plant materials/ minerals/kasim
- Alum is the mordant used in the dyeing process.
Natural Colours:
- Tamarind stems are burned and made into charcoal used for black, especially in the initial sketching
- Kasim Kaaram – purified scrap iron, cane jaggery and palm jaggery are used to get black colour
- Chavala Kodi and Surudu Chekka help to obtain red and green shades
- Pomegranate skin is used to obtain light yellow colour
- Katechu is boiled to obtain lighter brown colour
- Blue is obtained from the Indigo plant- Indigo Tinctoria
- Manjishtha is used to obtain pink and red colours
Technique:
- Plain gaada cloth is prepared by soaking it in myrobalan and milk solution, called ‘kadka’. This helps the fabric to absorb the required metallic mordant and prevents natural dyes from spreading.
- Once dry, outlines are hand painted using the Kalam and charcoal made from burnt tamarind twigs. The patterns vary from flora and fauna, god figures and animal forms.
- The cloth is washed and dried after the complete outline has been drawn. The cloth is boiled in a mixture of Jaggery leaves and Anar to fix and brighten the colours.
- To fill colours and details, natural colours are applied to the designs, one colour at a time. After each step, the cloth is treated in alum solution, washed and dried.
- This process is repeated for all the colours in the design. The re-painting steps depend on the complexity of the design and the colour palette.
- A final colour-fixing treatment is done in a mixture of water and alum salt.
All colourants /mordants used in Kalamkari are used in ayurvedic medicines and are antiviral and antimicrobial While the craft is known as Kalamkari today, this was not its original name. it was called Vrathapani.
