Mithila or Madhubani Paintings get their name from the Mithila region of the state of Bihar in India where this form of art is widely practiced, particularly by women. The origin of Mithila Paintings can be traced back to the period of the Ramayana when King Janak commissioned artists to make these paintings at the time of the marriage of his daughter Sita with Lord Ram. Initially, women of the village drew the paintings on the walls of their homes as an illustration of their thoughts, hopes and dreams. With time, the paintings started becoming a part of festivals and special events like weddings. Themes of the Mithila paintings of Bihar revolve around Hindu deities like Krishna, Ram, Lakshmi, Shiva, Durga and Saraswati. The nature-based themes that are used include the sun, the moon, and sacred plants like tulsi or holy basil. The brush used for Mithila Paintings is made of cotton wrapped around a bamboo stick. The artists prepare the colors that are used for the paintings. The all natural red color is made from the juice of the Kusum flower or red sandalwood, the black color is made by adding soot to cow dung, yellow from combining turmeric with the sap of banyan leaves, blue from indigo, green from various leaves and white from rice flour. A double line is drawn as an outline and the gap between the two lines is filled with either crosses or lines. In 1968, when Bihar was reeling from a severe drought a few women began to paint on paper for sale, to supplement their meagre family income. At first they simply transferred onto paper the traditional images like gods, goddesses and symbolic icons from the wall paintings and soon many other women followed suit. The women passed on this traditional art to their daughters and this art is still alive and thriving. Over time Mithila paintings have demonstrated extraordinary vitality and is definitely a vibrant and powerful tradition. This footage is part of the broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The collection comprises of 150, 000+ hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on 4K, 200 fps slow motion, Full HD, HDCAM 1080i High Definition, Alexa and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Please subscribe to our channel wildfilmsindia on Youtube www.youtube.com/wildfilmsindia for a steady stream of videos from across India. Also, visit and enjoy your journey across India at www.clipahoy.com , India's first video-based social networking experience. Reach us at rupindang [at] gmail [dot] com and [email protected] To SUBSCRIBE click the below link: www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=WildFilmsIndia Like & Follow Us on: Facebook: ww