Introduction

Natural Collection Traders (NCT) is an Organization which collects different mines stones from different locations. It is produce by grinding and refining the naturally color full stone from different collecting raw material of mine stone which is use in art paintings. The main aim of NCT is to explore several ancient Natural Mineral Pigments color schemes as stone, plant, mud etc. and to make proverbial among the people them. The NCT orient on how and where to use such colors for quality arts. NCT also produce Thanka Pauva Paintings using pure mineral pigments by well experienced artist Sudarshan Suwal and Ramesh Ranjit and provide to people them as their demand and teach to interested people too. It has an Art Studio and Art Gallery.

The history stands as a witness to prove that art and craft was started since ancient time. It is believed that Thanka and wall paintings among all arts/crafts was started in 11th century. In ancient art and crafts, the colors combination extracted from mine stone, flowers and mud were massively used to make arts gorgeous. This trend of color combination lasted until the 17th century, and gradually deteriorated afterwards and became almost extinct in the modern era. The reason behind this extinction is the use of unnatural chemicals which are not only cheaper but also easily available in the market. Thus, the artists of new generation have focused to use such color instead of ancient mines stones etc. This has eventually led to deteriorate the quality of arts. Untimely fading colors and short lasting the innovation are the examples of deteriorated quality of arts as we see in current days.

With the objective to retain and sustain ancient natural color scheme even in modern deteriorating artistic era, the Natural Collection Traders has been established.

Activities

  1. At the beginning the NCT collect the stone colors which have been rapidly on extinction. 
  2. Motivate those artists who have been using chemical color to use mine colors and teach them the process for using mine colors. 
  3. Manufacture the raw materials of mines color according to the need of people through typical use of ancient technology i.e. handmade and sell them in a very reasonable price. 
  4. The Company has been producing stone colors along with several Thankas using the same stone colors. On the matter of quality of color, it can easily be distinguished between Thankas available in the market and the Thankas produced by NCT. 
  5. The next aim of the NCT is to orient the quality Thankas to the needy people so as to avoid from illicit fraud as well as to familiarize the importance of ancient color scheme. The Suwal Art Gallery welcomes all the Art lovers to observe quality Thankas flourished with stone colors.

Our Products

1. Thanka (Pauva)

In general, Thanka is a classical art based on god goddess. But in real sense, centuries before, Thankas were painted to worship as it contains god and goddess of one’s faith. Such Thankas were popular basically among the Bajrayana, Mahayana and Heenyana groups of Buddhism. Thankas were also painted in the name of dead relatives for the eternal peace of their souls. Many people get Thanka painted as the genealogy of their ancestors so that their coming generation could understand their past generation. Some  Thanka in their personal treasure to maintain secrecy, to concentrate their mind during meditation, and to make their thankas long lasting, as it becomes safe when kept in treasure.

Thankas kept in treasure becomes safe as only limited people are allowed to enter there. In those days, when money was not in use, Thanka painters/artists used to get food-stuffs, clothing and other daily necessaries item in exchange of the thankas, as their remuneration/cost. Till seventeeth century, Thankas were painted with natural stone colour, vegetable colour, flower colour etc. and they used cotton for painting. After evolution of chemical colours and othe artificial colours, and also due to easy and cheap availability of such colours, people started to use such colours, which are not natural. In those days, artists used meditations, and also prayed before starting painting for their full concentration In the same tradition, some get constructed statues of gods and goddesses based on their culture and faith. Some people who believe on relegation and culture get constructed public shelters and sheds, bihar- a statue at the centre of public space surrounded by public shelters and sheds; leaving sufficient open space around the central statue and inside the surrounded shelter; such Bihars were used as class rooms for delivering religious lectures. In those days, Thanka paintings were practiced in Nepal and- India. But later, such paintings could not be prospered in India whereas; Nepal, basically the Kathmandu based on pretty progess in Thankas painting. Bhrikuti, the daughter of King Ansubarma,( rule from 605 to 621 A.D. in Nepal) who married with Shrang Chang Gampo, The king of Tibet, carried Thankas painting as wedding gift from Nepal and publicized it in Tibet. Thus the root of Tibetan Thanka also belongs to Nepal and Nepalese culture, mainly based on Buddhism, the resource person of this religion was Lord Buddha, who was born in 563 B.C in Lumbini, a southern district of Nepal.

2. Stone Pigments

Stone Pigment color is such as a real color which is takes out raw material from quarry without any mixing artificial chemical color. Then the material of pigments is purely produce by grinding and refined the naturally colorful stone in powder form, manually. The pigments are not use only in paintings. It means, these special stones are also use as medicine in Ayurvedic treatment. It has a different pleasure while painting with such natural pigment. The art painting painted with such color have various distinct and peculiar quality in it. If properly cares, such painting does not get fade even after millenniums (thousands of year). The other peculiar quality of paintings with such natural pigments is some of them have superfine natural twinkles in it which last as long as the color. It may be noted that there is no mixing of any artificial twinkles in these colors. Such natural twinkles can be seen very well in direct sunlight/focus light on the paintings and further more clearly with the help of magnifying lens. Weights of the stone pigments are different depending on their quality. Some colors like Cinnabar Red and Cream White’s weight become very heavy like precious metals while weight of Orpiment yellow and Malachite Green is light than Cinnabar and other.

3. Miniature Art

Miniature Art painting is on base of story of god and goddess. In the art, story is depicted with the art. It is usually found in small size and wrote on Lokta (hand made) Paper, Bamboo leaf and woodblock. It is known as Manuscript. Most of Manuscripts are used in Lokta Paper as a book. As own religion, artists use to depict different kind of manuscript and they used to different medium too. As example, Islamic and European (Christiana) artists use to write on silk on their own story of their religion.People could not be succeed yet to found exactly time of beginning In Nepal but people are believed that it is found since 11th century while the wall painting beginning with.