Pyatkar artists paint tribal folklore at the art camp in Jamshedpur on Friday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Most artists paint with acrylic oil and watercolours, but pyatkar painters of Aamadubi village, East Singhbhum, use colours from nature on their palette.

Three tribal artists at Prakriti, a three-day art camp at Jamshedpur’s Tata Steel Zoological Park hosted by Dhalbhum forest department, are charming visitors with organic colours made from leaves, red soil and stones.

Prakriti, an eco art camp inaugurated by both Jamshedpur (East) MLA Raghubar Das and Jamshedpur (West) MLA Banna Gupta, aims to give grassroots artists a platform to interact with professional painters from across India.

Around 35 artists, including painters, dokra and clay artisans and sculptors are here to participate in the camp that started on Friday, including those from Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

But the pyatkar artists Bijoy Chitrakar, Kajal Chitrakar and Rangalal Gayen are arguably garnering the maximum eyeballs.

The tribal practitioners of this ancient art form are a brave lot. Most of their peers have switched over to other professions. Those that are sticking on, find it difficult to make ends meet.

“We can’t survive just on painting, it is not enough to sustain a family. Most of the artists in our village have now taken on farming, joined MNREGS projects or got other work,” said Gayen from Aamadubi, who works as a labourer under the aegis of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana.

Pyatkar is not just a form of ancient tribal paintings, the artists also compose songs using their paintings as a theme.

The songs are based on mythology, folktales and satire.

Initially artists used wastepaper, often discarded papers from government offices. These were sewn or pasted together into a scroll. Various images unfolded like a poem.

Painters use natural colours. For instance, green is made from leaves, light yellow from palash flowers, red and yellow from stones available from the forests, and dull black from leaves mixed with carbon.

“Our forefathers didn’t have any other occupation, they only painted. We have inherited this art. However, today it is not possible to eke out a living through only painting. Most of us have switched over to farming. But this art form has not received due recognition. Pyatkar artists earn a pittance, while eminent ones earn in lakhs,” said Bijoy Chitrakar, who has displayed his paintings in Ranchi and Hyderabad and has over 150 songs in his kitty.

He added that they made hardly Rs 5,000 a month. “My paintings are priced Rs 2,000 each, but people don’t shell out even that much,” he said.

Their only solace? “We find colour in everything.”