Pemba Tamang has been painting thangkas for nineteen years. He started as a twelve-year-old apprentice in Boudha, grinding colours for his teacher, and wasn’t allowed to paint a deity’s face until his seventh year. This autumn he painted the Green Tara now hanging in our gallery. This is how it was made.
Week one: the canvas and the grid
The cotton is stretched on a wooden frame, coated with a mix of chalk and glue, and polished with a smooth stone until it is almost like paper. Then Pemba draws a grid of proportion lines in charcoal. Tara’s body, throne and halo all have fixed measurements, set out in old painting manuals.
Weeks two to four: the colour
Colours are made from ground minerals mixed with glue and water. The blue is lapis, the green malachite, the red cinnabar. They go on in the traditional order: sky and background first, then the landscape, then the figure, each in thin, even coats.
You can’t rush the colours. If one layer isn’t dry, the next one cracks, and then you start again.
Pemba Tamang
Weeks five and six: gold and eyes
The outlines, jewellery and flower details are drawn in 24K gold, then burnished with a stone so they catch the light. The very last step is the eyes, painted on an auspicious day. Only then is the painting considered complete.
Every thangka in our gallery comes with a certificate signed by its painter. See the thangkas available now.
