Bringing the cloth, and washing out the starch
The cotton arrives stiff with mill starch. It is washed in the river and beaten against stone until the starch lets go and the cloth will take a dye at all.
How it is made
Twenty-two stages, and a great deal of waiting
Drying in the sun
Spread out in the open. Every drying on this page is sun drying — no heat, no machine.
The milk and myrobalan dip
Steeped in buffalo milk with crushed myrobalan nut. The fat in the milk keeps colour from bleeding past a drawn line. The myrobalan leaves behind tannin, and almost every colour that follows depends on it — without that tannin the black will not blacken and the reds will not hold.
Drying in the sun
Dried again. The cloth comes up a pale straw yellow — the myrobalan showing itself.
The sketch
The design is sketched freehand with a thin stick of tamarind charcoal, light enough to be lost under the colours that follow.
Preparing the black, and drawing the outline
Our black is kasim karam — palm jaggery and rusted iron, left together in liquid about fifteen days until they ferment. It goes on colourless and turns deep black only where it meets the myrobalan tannin already in the cloth. Every outline is then drawn by hand. Kasim karam is not only the black: it goes on to deepen the red as well.
Preparing the red, and colouring
Red begins with alum, painted on by hand wherever red is to appear. It is invisible work — alum leaves almost no mark — so a whole day can go on a colour that cannot yet be seen.
A rinse in the river
Carried to flowing water and rinsed until everything unfixed lets go. Every rinse on this page is river water, running — never a still bucket.
Boiling
Boiled with madder root. Only the alum-painted areas take the dye. How deep that red goes — from red through to a dark maroon — is decided by how much of our kasim karam solution is added, not by the heat.
A rinse in the river, and drying in the sun
Rinsed again in flowing water, then dried in the open.
River sand, for the whites
Rinsed and spread on the banks of river sand to bleach, one to two days. The white of a good kalamkari is not bleach — it is sunlight, over and over.
The milk dip
Back into buffalo milk, to hold the colours already down and ready the cloth for the ones still to come.
Drying in the sun
Dried in the open again.
Khattha, for the brown
Brown is khattha — the catechu sold at any paan shop. Painted on by hand, it gives the biscuit colour.
Pink
Pink is drawn out of manjistha bark and painted on by hand. The same plant that gives our red in the pot gives pink from its bark.
Green
There is no green dye here. Green is our yellow mixed with our indigo — the two liquids together, before anything touches the cloth.
Yellow
Yellow comes from myrobalan flower and pomegranate rind. Mixed with the pink it gives orange, so two more colours come out of the same few dyes.
A rinse in the river
Back to flowing water, carrying away everything the cloth has not held on to.
The indigo vat
Indigo is fermented indigofera leaf. The cloth comes out of the vat green and turns blue in the air as it oxidises — the one colour you watch arrive.
A rinse in the river
Washed once more in flowing water.
Drying in the sun
The last drying in the open.
Ironing, from the back
Pressed on the reverse, so the heat never touches the drawn face.
The piece is then ready to go.
The palette
Nine colours, and not a pigment among them
Everything you see on our cloth came out of a root, a bark, a flower, a nut, or a pot of rusting iron. Two of the nine are not dyes at all — green is our yellow mixed with our indigo, and orange is our yellow mixed with our pink. Both are combined as liquids, before they ever touch the cloth.
BlackKasim karam — palm jaggery and rusted iron, fermented about fifteen days
RedMadder, boiled — deepened with kasim karam
PinkManjistha bark
BrownKhattha — the biscuit colour
YellowMyrobalan flower and pomegranate rind
GreenOur yellow mixed with our indigo
OrangeOur yellow mixed with the pink
IndigoIndigofera leaves, fermented in a vat
CreamThe cloth itself, bleached by sun on river sand