Uttaranchal has a rich culture of wall paintings. These wall paintings are basically categorized into kitchen paintings and ritualistic ones.
In the rural areas the walls of the house are re-plastered twice in a year with a mixture of cow dung and mud. The renewed surface of the walls is painted with ochre red color and various images are drawn on it using rice paste. The kitchen walls are embellished with traditional motifs called Nata, Chatu and Lakshmi Narayan.
The Nata patterns portray cereal saplings planted in rows, which are bordered by dotted rectangular frames. The saplings indicate the prosperity of the family and the strong bonds that tie the members together. The overall pattern is drawn on a raised platform. Six months later, images with the Lakshmi Narayan motif is created. This motif portrays two human figures enclosed inside a dotted square frame.
On special occasions like marriage, the outer walls are decorated with alternating images of bells and conch shells. This particular motif represents the celestial sound that was produced during the creation of the universe. This image gives the message that all sounds and forms are related to each other.
