Preparatory sketch for a Barahmasa painting

We get here a wonderful glimpse into the artist’s creative process: he has outlined the main subject, its settings, and main poses for the figures—and then gone further. He has thought through details like tree and bird varieties, given facing directions to birds, even decided on the number and placement of fish in the lotus pond, and specified exact color shades.

The line work offers more hints into the artist’s methods: we see where he started or stopped when the paint on his brush ran out (tiny dark “spots”); how he changed his mind about a shape’s outline (double lines); and how he tweaked a detail to get it just so (dense or thick lines).