Analysis of Thangka Drawing Steps

Tangka is a unique painting with Tibetans as a special painting group, which often has distinctive national characteristics and strong religious color, so the most common one in Tangka is the Buddha statue.

Traditionally, precious mineral gems such as gold, silver, pearls, agate, coral, turquoise, malachite, cinnabar and plants such as saffron, rhubarb and indigo are used as pigments to show sacredness. These natural materials ensure that the painted Thangka is bright and dazzling, and it is still bright and bright after hundreds of years.

Thangka's creative process is very particular and complicated. Before the meeting, please ask a servant from the living Buddha, choose an auspicious day, bathe yourself, burn incense and pray, and prepare materials while chanting. Then through the process of preparing canvas, positioning the draft, coloring, marking, gold painting, opening and blessing. It takes ten days to dozens of days to draw a simple Thangka, and months to years to draw a complex Thangka.

Develop painting materials

Thangkas are mostly heavy-colored paintings, and the pigment preparation is very particular. Traditionally, the pigments for drawing Thangka are made of precious mineral raw materials such as gold, silver (the gold part is gold and the silver part is silver in the picture), coral, pearl, malachite, cinnabar, and plant raw materials such as saffron, rhubarb and indigo. Cross-colored and painted on polished cotton cloth.

Elastic canvas

Canvas cloth is made of smooth and slightly thick white cotton cloth, without any stains, holes and cracks. Wash and dry the cut canvas and stretch it on a stretcher. Then glue on both sides of the canvas, and the quality of glue determines the coloring quality of color pigments in Thangka paintings. After the glued canvas is dried in the shade, it can be placed on a white background. White mud soaked in warm water is evenly coated on both sides of the dry canvas, which makes the pores on the surface of the cloth blocked and the surface smooth.

Polishing cloth surface

Grinding canvas requires two processes, rough grinding and fine grinding. First, roughly grind it several times. After the canvas with a good white background is dried in the shade, gently polish it with a slightly rough grindstone. The grinding sequence is always from top to bottom, from left to right, and must be dried in the shade once each time. Fine grinding is the last process of canvas production. In order to facilitate composition and coloring, first mix a small amount of glue in cold water, evenly spread it on the front of the canvas, and then dry it in the shade and polish it with a smooth grindstone for three to five times.

Drawing, composition and image measurement

Thangka's drawing and composition are the basis of the whole drawing process. This step is to arrange the size, contrast and position of the image to be drawn according to the measurement rules of Thangka. Through line drawing, first draw the skeleton of God and Buddha statue and determine the contrast, then draw clothes, wreaths, treasure crowns and utensils, and finally draw landscapes, luck, flowers, birds and animals houses. There are strict measurement standards for the drawing of idols and Buddha statues, and it takes years of training for painters to master them.

Tangka coloring

It is a very meticulous job to color Thangka according to the previous draft composition. The painter paints a large area of clothes first, then the sky, still life and ground, and the face is not painted until the end. In order to change the color depth of each part, after coloring, all colors should be powdered to change the light and shade.

Thangka stain

Halo dyeing is a color rendering method to make up for the lack of stereoscopic effect in plane painting. Through blooming, the transition between the two colors can be natural and smooth, giving things in Thangka paintings a real texture and three-dimensional sense.

Tangkagou line

Sketching is the most important process in Thangka production, which is to describe the muscles, clothes, rocks, trees and clouds of characters with sharp pens. Thangka's gold thread is made by grinding pure gold into fine powder, adding water and glue, mixing evenly, painting and sketching on canvas, and then polishing it with the hardness of a gem pen to make it shine. The whole Thangka will become resplendent and dazzling.

Thangka's eyes opened

This is the last process of drawing, and opening eyes is also the crowning touch of the whole Thangka. With a stroke of a pen, Thangka's portrait was endowed with aura. After the painting was finished, the monk and living Buddha opened the light and blessed, and wrote a mantra on the back of Thangka with vermilion, which made Thangka have the characteristics of "leaning against the body" and protected the safety and health of people who became attached.

increase

(1), Tangmen (also known as Dunga or Tuoju) In the standard Tibetan Tangka, a piece of cotton satin (also known as Sanguisorba officinalis) is sewn in the middle of the ground. This gorgeous and exquisite square or long brocade with different sizes and shapes is called Tangmen in Tibetan and is a symbolic ornament of Tangka. This brocade can be of any color and shape. It can be a square, a horizontal rectangle or a vertical rectangle. Brocade is located in the center of the picture below Thangka, accounting for one-third of the area below, also known as "Dunga" or "Lift". Sometimes there is a brocade in the center of the last picture of Gongxia.

② Diyu (also called Biandi)

(3), the right picture

(4), the left picture

(5) Tianchijie is equivalent to the mounter of Chinese paintings, with exquisite materials, such as red and blue brocade, plain brocade, variegated brocade, passion flower slices with gold satin edges, dragon stone green slices with gold edges, woven gold satin and so on. The more important Thangka materials are, the more valuable they are. For Thangka with birthday meaning, use red Yunlong gold satin edge, azurite birthday satin or red birthday satin as a frame to set off the theme. For example, this material was used to carve Thangka, the origin of the Sixth Panchen Lama. These materials are basically woven by Suzhou Weaving Institute, and will be purchased in Beijing when used occasionally. Sew silk or cotton satin on the four sides of the painting core. Collectively referred to as "under the palace". Such as: (2), Sanguisorba officinalis, (3), right side (4), left side (5), Tianchi, etc. "Gongxia" can be made of all kinds of silk or cotton satin with a fixed size. The length of the picture below Gongxia accounts for half of the painting core, and the picture below is slightly longer; The length of the picture above accounts for half of the length of the picture below, or a quarter of the painting core. For example, the core of a Thangka painting is 40 cm wide, 60 cm high, 30 cm long below, 15 cm long above and 7.5 cm wide horizontally. The lining on the back of Thangka can be cotton, silk, cotton satin, etc. Generally speaking, the lining only sticks to the "under the palace" part of Thangka, not the picture part; Thangka has a black lining on the whole back. There are also some thangkas, although the back is completely mounted, but after mounting, by uncovering the stubble between the picture and the interlining, the interlining part on the opposite side of the picture is cut on three sides, so that you can see the words written on the back of thangkas. In this case, the back of Thangka picture and the two bottom edges of the lining are usually fixed together, but people have to open the lining page to see the words on the back.

(6) Tooth (also known as rainbow) First of all, there are teeth around Thangka's painting center, which means: red Huang Caihong, which obviously means that Thangka's teeth are mainly red and yellow. In fact, its color matching is quite free, and it is not limited to this. There are even cases where teeth are not used. There are red and yellow satin teeth, moon platinum five-color teeth, red gold teeth, red, yellow, green, foreign gold teeth, red gold teeth, red gold teeth, longevity lamp gold teeth and so on. The above teeth are all multi-layered and multi-colored, so the Tibetan language is vividly called rainbow. Sometimes single-layer brocade teeth are also used, which are called big teeth. This is a simplified table. Teeth are edged outside. There is a small white line at the junction of the tooth and the edge, and there is also a small white line or a red and white line at the outermost edge. These two lines almost became the symbol of Thangka's mounting in the palace. Many thangkas are surrounded by two red or yellow ribbons, which are called "rainbows" in Tibetan. The width of each ribbon is half of the edge (that is, the left and right sides of the framed silk); If there is only one ribbon, the width is a quarter of the side width, and the other three quarters of the side width will naturally be lined with silk. After installation, there are winding rods and lintels. In Tibetan, the names of these two poles are the same: Pometia or Gan Tang. But from a physical point of view, there are obvious differences between the two.

(7) Cover your face or curtain (also called Buddha curtain or Tang curtain) There is a wide curtain in front of Thangka, which can cover the whole Thangka. Usually, the dough cover is made of silk (people think that the best silk for making dough covers is "dough silk", which is soft and yellow with red and green spots). The cover is made of red, yellow and blue strips alternately, or only one color strip is used as the cover. The cover is sewn on the top of Thangka, and there are some folds in the center of the cover. Thangkas painted with gods and protectors are also white, yellow, blue, green and so on. However, the surfaces of this Thangka are not sewn together, but separated. There is a row of pleated hanging cloth along the upper part of Thangka cover, which is about 8 cm long and made of red silk. This layer of Buddha curtain (or Tang curtain) is used as the decoration of Thangka. This part is sewn under the lintel of Thangka, as long as the winding rod, and made of five-color hada or five-color brocade. The soft and light Buddhist curtains installed in the palace are mostly made of a whole piece of fabric and rarely divided into several pieces, which is different from the Tibetan Buddhist curtains, which are mostly made of two or three pieces stacked on top of each other. Like other fabrics, Buddha curtains are specially woven by Suzhou Weaving Department. It is not only a decoration, but also an important part of protecting Thangka.

(8) There are two hooks nailed to the top of the lintel of the window sash (also called silk ribbon), and each hook has a circle. It's called an iron ring in the file, which is obviously made of pig iron. In the Qing Palace, beads are driven by iron, gold or silver, and each circle is tied with a tapestry. In addition, there are Korean paper labels on the circle, which are slightly smaller than the white silk labels on the back of Thangka. After twenty-five years of Qianlong 1760, the flower tapestry at the palace was built with reference to the practice of Erut Mongolia. When hanging Thangka Sacrifice, two tapestries are tied together to hang ropes. After the Thangka is rolled up, use two tapestries to fasten the Thangka, and the length is limited to two turns around the rolled Thangka. The adhesive tape is mostly woven with five-color mixed coarse hemp thread, which is not easy to loosen after being fastened and durable after polishing. In addition, the colors are diverse, which is very popular with the colors of Thangka. It has become one of the characteristics of the palace thangka. In addition, it is also common to make tapestries with red ribbons. The situation of hanging rope with thick thread is more common in Thangka paid by Tibet. At this point, the mounting work of a Thangka came to an end.

(9) The lintel pole (also called card salary or tribute salary) is installed at the upper end of Tianchi, which is a wide flat or flat round wooden strip, and its two ends are flush with the two sides of Tianchi, or slightly longer. Tibetan style, with skin as the head, is rarely used in the palace. This flat block of wood is also called "card salary" or "tribute salary". The ends of the batten are getting thinner and thinner, so that its cross section looks like a small wedge. Stick the "Jiajia" seam between the "Gongxia" and the lining, the length is the same as the width of Thangka, and the two sides should not protrude.

(10) The winding rod (also called Tangjia or unpaid) is installed at the lower end of Moyu, which is cylindrical and slightly longer than both sides of Tangka. The two sides under Thangka are finally locked with red lines. It must be noted that the bottom of Thangka is supported by a round wooden stick called "Thangkamu" (that is, "Thangkamu"). Determine the thickness of "Tang salary" according to the size of Thangka. Generally, the length of "Tang salary" is basically the same as the width below Tangka. Something 3 cm wider than Thangka can grow at both ends, and the two ends are covered with covers made of gold, silver or bronze. With "Tangfeng", it is much more convenient to roll up Tangka, so Tangka is also called scroll painting.

(1 1), the materials of Thangka winding rod and lintel rod in the axis hall are white sandalwood, red sandalwood and Chinese fir. The first two materials are the most precious. The shaft head of the club head is also exquisite in workmanship, including copper, silver, rosewood, copper-plated gold, silver-plated gold and other textures. As a decoration around the pole, the rosewood shaft head is mostly oyster mushroom-shaped; There are many carved or Aoqili (meaning "King Kong" in Mongolian) patterns on the heads of silver and copper shafts, or small beads such as coral, turquoise, pearls and lapis lazuli are embedded for decoration.

(12), Bird's Mouth (also known as "Jing Yan") Outside the Buddha curtain, there are two colored ribbons sewn, which hang down around the pole, and the bottom of the ribbon is bird's beak-shaped, so it is called "Bird's Mouth". Similar to the "startled swallow" in Chinese painting mounting. The specific function of ribbon is still unclear. It may be a practical thing in ancient painting and turned into a purely decorative thing.

(13), Thangka painting core (also known as Meilong)

Opening and blessing

Finally, Thangka painters took the framed Thangka to the living Buddha for opening and blessing, wrote Buddhist scriptures on the back of Thangka with cinnabar, and some even pressed the golden juice or cinnabar "hand model" of the living Buddha.

Making Thangka is a complicated and delicate process, and every step must be careful, otherwise a mistake will be wasted. Only after a series of complicated craft drawings can Thangka show its unique charm.

Next, please enjoy a group of green Tara Thangkas numbered 138-399334: