Illustration & motion

Women in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, comb khovar through wet white clay to the dark earth beneath, on the walls of the wedding room. We took the Brand Manual's rings of points on a triangular lattice; we left the animals, the plants and the wedding.

Three rings of points on a triangular lattice.

Gond painters of Madhya Pradesh fill every figure with their own pattern of dots, dashes, lines or scales. We took the Brand Manual's scales — three nested arcs, row on row; we left the figures and the stories they tell.

Three nested arcs, each row half a step over.

Gond painters of Madhya Pradesh fill every figure with their own pattern of dots, dashes, lines or scales. We took the Brand Manual's banded lines and strokes; we left the figures and the stories they tell.

A double line, then two rows of strokes, half a step apart.

A pulli kolam is drawn in rice flour at the doorstep, mostly by women, across South India: the points first, then lines that loop around them — at their best, one unbroken line. We took the point lattice and the one line; we left the ritual.

Ours: one unbroken line loops every point; grow it by adding points.

Pierced stone screens — jaali, a net — let air and light into Indian buildings and keep out the sun. Ours is the Zostel symbol's own 60° lattice, copied from no building.

The symbol's 60° lattice: triangles of light, a point where six bars meet.

Dyers in Jaipur and Jodhpur roll the cloth from one corner to the opposite edge, tie it and dye it, and it opens in waves — lehar. We took the diagonal and the wave, drawn as lines; we left the dye.

Waves on the diagonal, in pairs, as the ties leave them.

The cloth is pinched and tied at hundreds of tiny points before it is dyed — bandh, to tie; in Kutch the tying is done by Khatri women. We took the points and their groups — four together (chaubundi), one alone (ekdali); we left the figures they make.

Points in fours on a half-drop lattice, one alone between.

Women in Bengal layer old saris and quilt them with a running stitch, and the cloth ripples under the thread. We took the running stitch, row on row; we left the pictures sewn inside.

A stitch, a gap, row on row — every other row half a stitch over.

Woven on small handlooms in Nepal's hills — Terhathum in the east, Palpa in the west — mostly by women, a second weft laid in to build diamonds and zigzags. We took the diamond, drawn as the loom draws it: in steps.

Diamonds in steps, a point at the heart, each row half a step over.

Woven at home across Thailand, the checked pha khao ma is worn, bathed in, sat on and carried in. We took the check — warp and weft crossing — as lines.

Warp and weft bands, each drawn as its two edges; a point where they cross.

Women and men in the Kullu valley weave a plain shawl and finish both ends with bands of geometric patterns, set from memory, never from graph paper; the patterns came with weavers from Rampur Bushahr and Kinnaur. We took the band and drew it as lozenges touching at their points, a lozenge inside each, points along its edges; we left the colours (up to eight in a design) and the flowers.

A band of lozenges, a lozenge inside each, points at its edges; then the plain shawl.

Paithani saris are woven in Paithan and in Yeola. Where the border meets the body, their threads interlock (kadi, a chain, so the weave is called kadiyal), and the back of the sari looks nearly the same as its face. We took the interlock: wefts meeting at a seam and turning back round each other, pass by pass; we left the peacocks, the parrots and the lotuses.

Wefts turn back round each other at a seam: a chain, a point in every turn.

Kasuti is embroidered by women around Dharwad and Hubli, counting the threads of warp and weft with no outline traced, so both sides of the cloth look alike. Its stitches are gavanthi, murgi, negi and menthi, a cross like a fenugreek seed, used to fill the ground. We took the menthi: crosses counted on the cloth's grid, a point in each empty hole; we left the temple towers, chariots, lamps and lotuses.

Crosses counted on the cloth's grid, never touching; a point in each empty hole.

Since 1859, families in the Ambalapuzha and Cherthala taluks of Alappuzha, most of the workers women, have woven coir mats and mattings on heavy handlooms; woven on three or four shafts, the matting takes a herringbone. We took the herringbone, on its side: short ribs in rows, one row slanting up, the next down, a gap at the spine.

Short ribs in rows, one row up, the next down: a herringbone on its side.

In Srinagar, khatamband ceilings are fitted by hand, without glue or nails: thin wooden polygons set into grooved battens running in every direction, one motif repeating over the whole surface; many designs are built on hexagons. We took the hexagons and the battens between them, a point where three battens meet; we left the stars.

Hexagons fitted between battens, a point where three battens meet.

Weavers in Varanasi and the districts around it weave Banaras brocades, the pattern thread thrust between the warp, once on draw looms and now on jacquards. A sari's body can be laid out as a flowing diamond, a net with a figure inside every opening. We took the net and a point for each figure; we left the mangoes, the flowers and the arches.

A flowing diamond net, a point in every opening.

Across Uttarakhand's hills, artisans split ringal, the dwarf bamboo, into strips of different widths for warp and weft, and weave mats, baskets and winnows; the mats are woven in a basket weave. We took the basket weave, drawn as strips in threes, level in one block and upright in the next; we left the light and dark splits.

Strips in threes, level in one block, upright in the next.

The Lepcha (Rong) weave of Sikkim and the Kalimpong and Darjeeling hills is woven on the backstrap loom; its cloth was traditionally stripes of different thickness, set in the warp. We took the stripes, a group of eight (aa-shyer) close and wide by turns, and the arrow tips laid sideways (tsulot-tyet); we left the motifs and the colours.

Stripes in a group of eight, close and wide by turns; arrow tips laid sideways.

Nambu is Ladakh's handspun, handwoven wool: men weave it on foot looms where people farm, women on backstrap looms in Changthang. It is a twill, a diagonal rib, woven in narrow panels that are then joined. We took the rib inside each panel and the stitches of the join; we left the motifs.

A twill's diagonal ribs in narrow panels, stitched edge to edge.

Phulkari is embroidered in darning stitch from the back of the cloth, counting its threads, never tracing a design; level, upright and slanting stitches make the pattern. Its registration names Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, and the chhamas phulkari came from Rohtak, Gurgaon, Hissar and Delhi. We took the darning: lozenges made only of stitches, level in one and upright in the next; we left the figures, the mirrors and the bridal pieces.

Lozenges made only of darning, level in one, upright in the next.

In Assam the jaapi, the bamboo hat, is woven in an open hexagonal design; in the Khasi hills the knup, a rain shield, and baskets are woven the same way: strips in three directions, open hexagons and small triangles between them. We took the weave, each strip a band over one and under the next; we left the flowers, creepers and rhinos of the decorated (phulam) jaapi.

Strips in three directions, over one and under the next: open hexagons, small triangles.

In double ikat, warp and weft are tied and dyed before weaving so that they meet exactly in the motif, its edge feathered where the yarn shifts. Telia rumals were woven in Chirala, in Andhra Pradesh, until the 1930s, and fishermen on the Andhra coast still wear them; Puttapaka in Telangana weaves them now. The telia rumal is one kind of Pochampally ikat, which is known by its chowka, a diamond within a square. We took the chowka, a point at its heart, its edges feathered; we left the parrots, elephants and flowers.

A diamond within a square, a point at its heart, its edges feathered.

Maheshwari saris are woven in Maheshwar and Kasrawad, on the Narmada, 92 km south of Indore. Their border looks alike from both sides, its geometric designs taken from the carvings on the walls of Maheshwar's fort; the eent, brick, is one of them. We took the eent: bricks in courses, each course half a brick over; we left the flowers and the waves.

Bricks in courses, each course half a brick over, a point in every brick.