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DIGITALIZATION OF MADHUBANI DESIGNS FOR TRANSFERRING ON APPARELS USING SCREEN PRINTING TECHNIQUE
Ekta Sharma*, Manpreet Kalsy** and Dr. Susan Paul***
*Assistant Professor, ** Student, ***Visiting Professor
Textiles and Apparel Designing
Ethelind School of Home Science Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences
(Formerly Allahabad Agriculture Institute) (Deemed –to-be-University), Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
ABSTRACT
India had always been known as the land that portrayed cultural and traditional vibrancy through its conventional arts and crafts. Every region in India has its own style and pattern of art, which is generally known as folk art. Perhaps the best-known genre of Indian folk paintings is the Mithila (also called Madhubani) paintings from the Mithila region of Bihar state. Traditionally Madhubani paintings were done by hand which is tedious, time consuming and laborious process. But in due course of time with easy availability of different styles of printing, these paintings can be brought down on cloth by using various printing techniques. Hence in the present study an attempt was made to develop designs inspired from Madhubani paintings of Bihar for ladies kurtis, bedspreads and sarees.
Total twenty designs, ten each for ladies kurtis and sarees were developed manually and these designs were subjected to visual evaluation by a panel of thirty judges for selection of two best designs from each category in order to apply these on various articles. Articles were printed using screen printing method. The total cost of printing ladies kurtis ranged between Rs. 456.6 to 469.1 where as for sarees Rs. 1476.27 to 834.83 depending on the screens involved and the colours used for printing of articles. The prepared articles were finally subjected to visual evaluation by fifty entrepreneurs in order to assess their acceptability. All the articles were highly appreciated by the entrepreneurs and they were also willing to accept these designs.
Key words: Acceptability, CAD technology, Madhubani, Screen Printing, Visual evaluation
INTRODUCTION
Textile designing has been an ancient art and perhaps the most ancient craft of India. Textile designing is
the most demanding and emerging field as it is full of scope and creativity but many individuals become
quite lost when confronted with the task of finding "inspiration". An inspiration can come from any
stimulus that starts the creative process. Sources of inspiration are literally everywhere, but more
importantly; it is the designer's artistic sensibility and interpretive style that brings creative design into
being virtually live. Any objects or things we see in our daily routine are possible design sources. These
may include nature, temples, famous monuments, furniture, various kinds of toys, folk arts and crafts
such as wall paintings, floor paintings, sculptures, carvings etc. They can also be created through
adaptation of a specific design base and by fusion of different arts. The rich motifs and designs of the
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various arts and crafts can be readily adapted into contemporary forms in an attempt to make them
suitable to incorporate them into textile products. These sources of inspiration play a powerful role in
the beginning of the design process and in research and strategic collection planning. They also play an
essential role in the communication of design ideas, both among designers, and between designers and
managers and buyers. India had always been known as the land that portrayed cultural and traditional
vibrancy through its conventional arts and crafts. Every region in India has its own style and pattern of
art, which is known as folk art. The folk and tribal arts of India are very ethnic and simple, and yet
colorful and vibrant enough to speak volumes about the rich heritage. Folk art in India apparently has a
great potential in the international market because of its traditional aesthetic sensibility and
authenticity. Perhaps the best-known genre of Indian folk paintings is the Mithila (also called
Madhubani) paintings from the Mithila region of Bihar state. The Madhubani in literal translation means
‘Forest of Honey’ (Madhu-honey, Bans-forest or woods) These paintings are basically religious in nature.
The paintings are done by women predominantly at home, in anointed areas like the prayer room. Hindu
mythology is the main theme. The main figures in Madhubani paintings are adopted from nature and
mythology.
Madhubani paintings, although one of the most intricate art, still governs the entire fashion market.
Even today, when the dressing styles and trends are changing continuously, the beauty and charisma of
Madhubani art still captures the heart of people. Traditionally these paintings were done by hand which
is tedious, time consuming and laborious process. But in due course of time with technological
advancement, these designs directly can be created with the help of various softwares like corel draw,
photoshop etc. The easy availability of different styles of printing, the prepared motifs and designs can
be brought down on the cloth by using various printing techniques. Screen printing is one of the easiest
printing techniques. In the present study the investigator tried to produce Madhubani designs on various
articles by using screen printing technique.
METHODOLOGY
Collection of Madhubani Designs and Design development
The Madhubani motifs were collected through literature survey, wall hangings, books, magazines and
internet and total twenty designs, ten each for ladies kurties and ten for sarees were developed by
arranging motifs in different way with CAD technology using two softwares ie. Corel draw and Adobe
Photoshop.
Digitizing the motifs using Corel draw: The process of digitizing the motifs involved three stages:
Design input,
Design processing and
Design printing.
The first stage is the input of design i.e. either creation of motifs or copying it by coloured scanner. On
opening the corel-draw software the designer has two options either to create a new file or to open an
existing one. For development of motif, the entire design can be imported in to the new blank document
or by dragging the picture from its location to the task bar icon of corel draw and dropped on to the new
blank document. While opening the new document, the name of file, height, width, size of paper,
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primary colour mode, and resolution of the designs have been specified. Width and height of the design
were required in specific unit of measurement such as inches, millimeter etc. Soon after giving command
the CDR sheet with given specification is ready for design creation or editing. Editing of design includes
modification of motifs, colour combinations by creating specific colour separations for printing. This
could be done until one would not be satisfied with the final design. With the help of B-spline tool the
outline of motif have been drawn. B -spline tool used to draw curved lines by setting control points that
shaped the curve without breaking in to segments. Required shaping was done by the shape tool. Pen
tool, free hand tool and outline pen tool were also used frequently. For final shaping and arrangement
many tools from property bar were also used. After completing the motif, colours were filled with fill
tool and colour eye dropper tool. Then the prepared motifs were arranged in the various apparels and
handicraft items in desired arrangements. Once the design is ready, then designer has an option to take
the simulation of the design produced or save the same as CDR or JPEG bitmaps file. For changing the
corel draw file format (CDR) in to JPEG Bitmaps ready files were exported by changing the format to the
preferred location. JPEG Bitmaps format was used to get the print out of the designs.
Fig. 1 Process flow of digitizing the motifs using CAD software - Corel draw x5
Visual evaluation of the developed designs
All the developed designs were subjected to visual evaluation for selection of two best designs in each
category i.e. ladies Kurtis and sarees by a panel of thirty judges. All designs were ranked according to
their preferences obtained. The attributes assigned for evaluation of designs were colour combinations,
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appropriateness of designs, arrangement of motifs and over all appearance of the design and five point
rating scale developed by Premlata (1991) was used for the evaluation of the developed designs. 1, 2, 3,
4 and 5 scores were assigned to those designs which attained poor, fair, good, very good and excellent
respectively.
Preparation of fabric
Cut length of cotton fabric was used for ladies kurties and plain sarees were purchased. Cotton fabric was desized by hot soapy solution for ten minutes to remove the greasy matter so that the fabric may properly absorb the dye and then rinsed and dried in shade.
Printing of Articles
Sarees and Kurtis were printed using PVC colours. Various screens were prepared for each colour. The recipe used for printing of articles is as follows:
PVC colour = 100 parts
PVC reducer = 10 parts
Medium ( Fixer) = 10 parts
Total = 120 parts
Printing paste was prepared by taking PVC colour in a beaker, along with PVC reducer. A medium was then added in this paste to avoid drying of printing paste. It also acts as a fixer. The sari was spread on the printing table and screen was placed on the desired area of the sari where the design is required. The paste was poured on the screen and spread towards the
printer with the help of squeezee by applying the pressure downward at an angle of 40-65. The squeeze was then taken to the opposite side in the same manner. Similar procedure was used to print ladies kurti. After printing, the printed sarees and ladies kurtis were dried in shade and steamed in order to fix the colour.
Cost determination and product evaluation
The cost of all the printed products was calculated separately, the cost was calculated on the basis of money spent for raw materials, screens and other essential items. The cost of designing was not added but abour charges used for preparation of screens and printing of articles were added in the total cost of the final products. The cost of printing paste was calculated by measuring the amount of ingredients for printing one ladies kurti and one sari and left over paste was considered as waste and its cost was not reduced from the cost of printing paste. Each printed article was shown to same panel of judges to assess their acceptability. The attributes of judgment were colour combination, neatness, cost and overall appearance. Five point rating developed by Premlata (1991) scale was used for the evaluation of the products.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
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Visual evaluation: All the developed designs (Plates 1-8) were visually evaluated and results are shown in Fig 2 and 3. It was found that among the designs developed for ladies kurties, design number 5 got the maximum score (4.40) and ranked first followed by the design number 10 (4.33) while in case of sarees design number 7 got the maximum score (4.45) due to the arrangement of motifs and colour combinations and ranked first and design number 6 (4.11) scored second rank. Hence these designs were applied on articles using screen-printing technique.
Developed Designs
Fig. 2 Preference score for designs developed for ladies Kurtis
Developed Designs
Fig. 3 Preference score for designs developed for ladies Sarees
Cost of printed products:
The cost of printing two ladies kurtis and two sarees was calculated separately and the results are
reported in Table 1 and 2. It was observed form the table 1 that the cost of kurti I was slightly higher (Rs.
469.10) than the cost of kurti II ie. Rs.456.60 due to the use of expensive fabric. In case of sarees, the
cost of sari I (Rs. 2834.83) was higher than the cost of sari II (Rs. 1476.27). This was due to the
involvement of eight screens and due to the consumption of more colours. (Table 2)
3.61 3.57 3.583.35
4.4
3.46
4.3
3.11
3.934.33
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Sco
res
3.65 3.77 3.763.93
3.35
4.114.45
3.94
3.52
4.06
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Sco
res
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Table 1: Cost of printed kurties
Items Kurti-I Kurti-II
Consumption Rate
(Rs.)
Value
(Rs.)
Consumption Rate (Rs.) Value
(Rs.)
Cut length of cotton
fabric
2 m 45/- m 90/- 2 m 40/-m 80/-
Stitching charges 1 45/-
kurti
45/- 1 45/- 45/-
Screen cost 1 67.37/
screen
67.37/- 1 67.37/-
screen
67.37/-
Cost of raw materials
used
- - 92.91/- - - 92.91/-
Colours 100 gm. 600/-kg. 60/- 100 gm 600/- kg 60/-
Actual cost - - 455.28/- - - 445.28/-
25% profit - - 113.82/- - - 111.32/-
Sale price - - 469.1 - - 456.6/-
Table 2: Cost for Printing Sarees
Items Sari-I Sari-II
Consumption Rate
(Rs.)
Value (Rs.) Consumption Rate
(Rs.)
Value (Rs.)
Plain saree 1 336/- 336/- 1 336/- 336/-
Screen cost 8 67.37/- 538.96/- 3 67.37/- 202.11/-
Cost of raw
materials
- - 92.91/- - - 92.91/-
Colours 8 colours
(250gm. Per
colour)
600 kg. 1200/- 3 colour 250 gm.
Per colour
600 kg. 450/-
Actual cost - - 2667.87/- - - 1581.02/-
25% profit - - 666.96/- - - 395.25
Sale price - - 2834.83/- - 1476.27/-
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Acceptability of developed products:
The prepared printed articles (Plate 9-10) were subjected for visual evaluation to assess the acceptability
of the products and the results are given in Table 3.
Table 3 Acceptability level of the products
Articles Neatness Clarity
of
design
Suitability of
design
Cost Overall
appearance
Average
Ladies
Kurtis
Article-I 4.5 5 5 4.5 5 4.8
Article-II 4 4.5 4 4.5 4 4.2
Sarees Article-I 5 5 5 4.5 5 4.9
Article-II 4.5 4.5 5 5 4.5 4.7
It is clear from the Table that among the printed Kurtis, the article I was given first preference (score 4.8)
irrespective of higher cost and article II ranked second with the score of 4.2. Among the printed sarees,
similar results were obtained. Article I was most preferred than article II because of its colour
combination and neatness in design. Further despite of higher cost it was given first preference. Thus it
can be concluded that all the products were accepted and highly appreciated.
CONCLUSION
In India most of the states have their own traditional fabrics and designs distinctive of that area.
Madhubani paintings from the Mithila region of Bihar state capture the heart of people. However the
technique involved in producing Madhubani design is very much time and energy consuming.
The present study was an initial step in direction of creating Madhubani Designs using CAD
technology and applying prepared designs on the apparels using screen-printings technique. Screen-
printing is a fast method of producing designs, dose not required expensive equipment, save time and
energy and is not laborious. Since the procedure is very simple and easy to execute, a rural women can
easily adopt it as a mode of income generation and enhance her quality of life. The study may proved to
be beneficial for those women who want to start an enterprises as they can follow up these guidelines
for designing, preparation of screens and printing procedure.
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REFERENCES
Anand, M.R. 1984. Madhubani Painting. Bombay. Printwell 5-49.
Craven, R.C. 1997. Indian Art : A Concise History 8th ed. London. Thames and Hudson. 15-35.
Evans, H.M. and Dumesnil. C.D. 1982. An invitation to design. 2nd ed. London. 30-65.
Ghia, A.M. and Pandit, M . 1983. A study of different hand printing methods done on sarees in Gujarat, Master’s Thesis. The Maharaja Sayajirao Unviersity, Baroda, India.
DEVELOPED DESIGNS
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