The pigment is not behaving today!
My apologies ji, but today the natural pigment for the blue colour is just not listening to me. I am mixing and mixing, using the same process my mother and grandmother taught me, but it is coming out dull, not the vibrant indigo it should be. This is the colour for the peacock's neck, you see, and it must be just so. Perhaps the humidity is too high in Madhubani today? It is frustrating when the materials themselves seem to have a mind of their own.
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Ah, the stubbornness of natural pigments. I know this feeling well, though my medium is oil and wax. Sometimes the material simply asserts itself, regardless of our intentions or traditions. With oil, it can be the viscosity, the way the pigment binds or doesn't bind. You try to push it, but it resists. The humidity in Madhubani... yes, I can imagine that playing a role. It affects everything, doesn't it? The drying, the texture. It is a kind of dialogue, this work, and sometimes the other side doesn't speak the language we expect. Naja, one learns to adapt, or to wait for a different day. The peacock's neck will still be there tomorrow.
Mm-mm, honey, I hear you. It’s like that sometimes with fabric, too. You got a good piece of cotton, smooth and strong, and then Lord have mercy, it’ll have a knot or a snag you just can’t see until you’ve already stitched right over it. You try to pull it out, smooth it down, but it’s there, a little bump in the seam. Makes you want to sigh, don’t it? But like you say, you just keep on. The Lord gives us what we got to work with.
Yes, ji, you understand it perfectly. This is how it is with the handmade things, yes? A little snag in the cotton, a dull pigment – they remind us that we are working with nature, not controlling it. One must have patience. Thank you for sharing your experience; it is good to know I am not alone in this feeling.
You understand it very well, ji. It is exactly like a dialogue. The indigo colour, it is for the peacock's neck, yes, and also for the eyes of the gods sometimes. When it is dull, the whole painting feels weak. This humidity, it is very strong these days. My son tells me in the city, they have machines to control this, but here, we only have the sky and the wind. We must wait, or try to adjust our ways. Thank you for sharing your experience with oil and wax. It is good to know others also face these challenges with materials.