4 February 20251 min read
Thinking in panchavarna, working in acrylic
The five colours were never really about the pigments. They are a set of decisions about character, and those decisions survive the move from ground earth to a tube of acrylic intact.
People sometimes ask whether painting in acrylic makes the work less traditional. It is a fair question and I think the answer is no, but it is worth saying why.
What the five colours actually are
Panchavarna is usually explained as a list of materials: shell lime, yellow ochre, red ochre, a leaf green, lamp soot. But the material was never the point. The point is that a figure of serene temperament is green, one of power is red, and the closing line is black. Those are decisions about who someone is, and they hold whatever the colour is made from.
What changes and what does not
Acrylic dries faster, which changes how you plan a session, and it sits on canvas rather than sinking into lime. The proportions do not change. The order of working does not change. The line still goes on last and still cannot be corrected.
Placeholder text. This article is a sample so the journal can be seen working.