Odisha CHSE +2 Vocational Traditional Art and Craft key terms

A traditional cloth-based scroll painting of Odisha, made by coating cloth with a chalk-and-gum paste, then drawing and painting mythological subjects with natural colours and fine outlines.

A hereditary painter-artisan community of Odisha, especially around Puri and Raghurajpur, who traditionally paint Pattachitra, carve wood, and make masks for temple and village use.

A village near Puri in Odisha known as a heritage crafts village, where families of Chitrakars produce Pattachitra, palm-leaf engravings, masks, and other traditional crafts.

Palm-leaf etching from Odisha, in which designs are incised on dried, treated palm leaves with a stylus and then filled with black ink or colour, often strung as folded manuscripts.

The process of making a painting surface: cotton cloth is coated with a paste of tamarind seed powder and chalk, dried, and polished with a stone until smooth before painting.

In Odia painting tradition, the aesthetic mood or emotional flavour conveyed by a figure or scene, such as devotion, heroism, or tenderness, guiding pose, colour, and facial expression.

The expressive feeling or emotional state shown through a figure's eyes, gesture, and posture in traditional Odishan painting and sculpture, distinct from the general mood of the whole work.

A long narrative painting on cloth or paper, rolled for storage and travel, used by itinerant storytellers to unfold episodes of epics and legends sequentially before an audience.

A painted cloth scroll from Odisha depicting the punishments of Yama, the god of death, used by storytellers to teach moral lessons about sin, karma, and the afterlife.

A folk wall and floor art of rural Odisha, in which women draw white rice-paste motifs, dots, lines, and figures with fingers or cloth on mud walls and floors.

A floor art of Odisha made by sifting coloured powders, such as rice powder and turmeric, through the fingers to create dotted and floral patterns during festivals and rituals.

A traditional Odishan art of painting or drawing auspicious motifs, such as fish, conch, and lotus, on the floor or on paper for weddings and ritual occasions, often using rice paste.

A tribal wall mural tradition of the Saura people of southern Odisha, painted in white and other natural colours on mud walls, featuring figures, animals, and geometric patterns linked to ancestor worship.

A sacred painted wall shrine of the Saura tribe, dedicated to the deity Idital or to ancestors, covered with ritual murals and treated as a place of worship within the home.

A non-ferrous metal casting technique using the lost-wax process, practised by artisan communities in Odisha and neighbouring regions to make figurines, animals, and ritual objects.

A casting method in which a wax model is covered with clay, heated so the wax melts out, and then filled with molten metal to produce a hollow metal object.

The shaping of stone by chiselling, grinding, and polishing, used in Odisha for temple images, pillars, doorframes, and decorative panels carved from local stone such as sandstone and chlorite.

The cutting and shaping of wood with chisels, gouges, and knives to make images, temple chariots, furniture, masks, and decorative panels, a major craft of Puri and nearby areas.

A hand tool with a shaped cutting edge at the end of a steel bar, struck with a mallet or hammer to cut and shape wood, stone, or metal in carving work.

A carving tool with a curved, hollow cutting edge, used to scoop out rounded grooves and hollows in wood and soft stone, especially for detailing and modelling forms.

A resist-dyeing technique in which yarns are tied and dyed before weaving, so that the pattern appears as the cloth is woven; Odisha's bandha style is famous for its fine motifs.

The Odia term for Ikat textiles, especially the tie-dyed silk and cotton sarees of western Odisha, known for patterns such as elephants, conch shells, and lotus.

A resist-dyeing method in which parts of the yarn or cloth are bound tightly with thread so dye cannot reach them, creating patterns after the bindings are removed.

A decorative technique in which pieces of coloured fabric are cut and stitched onto a base cloth to form figures and patterns, used in Odisha for temple canopies and umbrellas.

A craft tradition of Pipli village near Puri, producing brightly coloured applique work on cloth and velvet, including canopies, umbrellas, bags, and banners for temple festivals.

The decoration of cloth with stitches using needle and thread, creating motifs, borders, and pictures on garments, household textiles, and ceremonial articles.

Baked, unglazed clay used for pots, tiles, figurines, and ritual objects; Odisha has a strong terracotta tradition in temple decoration and votive figures.

A rotating platform used by potters to shape clay into symmetrical forms such as pots, bowls, and lamps by centring the clay and pulling up the walls.

A creamy mixture of clay and water used to join clay parts, coat surfaces, or create decorative patterns before firing; it acts as a glue in hand-built pottery.

The arrangement of shapes, lines, colours, and space within a picture or design so that the parts form a balanced and readable whole that guides the viewer's eye.

A design principle describing the visual stability of a composition, achieved through symmetrical arrangement or through asymmetrical distribution of visual weight.

The relative size and scale of parts within a design or figure, such as the relationship of head to body or of one motif to another, affecting harmony and realism.

A repeated decorative unit or theme, such as a lotus, fish, elephant, or geometric border, used in painting, textiles, and carving to build larger patterns.

A regular or rhythmic repetition of motifs, lines, or colours across a surface, used to decorate cloth, walls, pottery, and carved panels.

Rapid freehand drawing used to record observations, plan compositions, and explore ideas, often with pencil or charcoal before a final work is made.

A colouring substance obtained from plants, minerals, or insects, such as turmeric, indigo, madder, or lac, used traditionally in textiles and painting.

A material such as gum, glue, or egg that holds pigment particles together and makes paint adhere to a surface; in Pattachitra, gum from the tamarind seed is traditionally used.

A curated collection of a candidate's drawings, designs, craft products, and process notes, used to show skills, progress, and understanding during practical assessment.

The systematic recording of a craft project through notes, sketches, photographs, material lists, and step-by-step descriptions, showing how an idea developed into a finished product.

A trial version of a product made to test design, materials, size, and cost before producing the final item or a small batch for sale.