Warli Painting! (Indian folk art)

       The Warlis (Varlis) are Adivasi (indigenous tribe), living in mountainous as well as coastal areas of Maharashtra-Gujarat border and surrounding areas. Warli sketches traditional art on the walls of huts and in the Rock Shelters. Warlis carry on a tradition stretching back to 2500 or 3000 BCE.

       Warlis draw their tradition, living style and nature. The elementary paintings show graphic vocabulary like lines circles triangle and squares. These paintings are sententious and come from observation of nature.  Circle is derived from Sun and Moon, Triangle seems pointed trees and mountains. The central pattern of these paintings is surrounded by the scenes, portraying group of dances, farming, festival, seasons, hunting, fishing, trees, clouds, sun, moon, Devchawk, humans and animals. Human, animal and birds are drawn by two tringles and a circle. These paintings are drawn by following rules. Rules are like, Sun should have eight numbers of rays, a coconut tree should have five to six leaves, in the scene of raining clouds should be filled with dots. The group dance is known as ‘Tarafa dance’ where men and women dances in the circles and someof them plays instruments like Tarafa (an instrument made up of pumpkins), Nagara and Dhol. Such paintings become attractive when those are sketched on dark background using white colors.

          The walls of Warlis’ huts are made up of soil cow dung and branches making a red ochre background and uses white color for paintings. The white color is prepared by a mixture of rice floor paste and water with gum as a binding. As a Paintbrush, bamboo sticks chewed at the end(to make it flexible) are used.

           Warli Art is cultural cognitive property of the tribal community and we have to preserve traditional knowledge in tribal communities across the globe.

                   Warli paintings made by me:

 

My First Warli Painting

Wedding Scene

Christmas Wishes