Indian art books for every level: the complete Artventures series by Rooftop

Artventures is Rooftop's series of Indian art books, and each title teaches one traditional art form across three levels. There are ten titles right now: Pichwai, Mata ni Pachedi, Phad, Cheriyal, Kalighat, Madhubani, Warli, Gond, Bhil and Baiga. That makes thirty books. Every title was made with artists who practise the form. The paintings you study inside are theirs, used with their permission and adapted for learners by the Rooftop team.

This guide covers all ten. For each one you will find what the art form is, what each of the three books asks you to do, and whose hands and knowledge are behind it. The order follows where each art was first made. It starts with the painted temple cloths of Rajasthan and Gujarat, moves to the scrolls that storytellers carried from village to village, then to the temple lanes of Kolkata and the walls of Mithila, and ends with four tribal traditions from the forests of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

How the three Artventures levels work

Every title comes as three books: Elementary, Essentials and Expert.

Elementary is for children of about 5 to 10. A mascot leads the child through the art form, and each title has its own. Gopi guides Pichwai, Raju guides Phad, Meenu guides Cheriyal, Vishu guides Warli, Golu guides Gond and Ramudi guides Bhil. The pages are built around tracing, colouring, connecting dots and finishing half-drawn pictures, so a child learns the motifs by making them.

Essentials is for beginners of any age. It opens with history and context, then breaks the art form into patterns, borders and motifs one step at a time, with blank pages to practise on. Most adults who have never painted should start here.

Expert is for people who already know the basics. It adds theory, full compositions, the ritual meaning behind the images and full-page reference paintings by named artists.

Each level is sold on its own, and most titles also come as a set of three at a lower price. When Rooftop launched the series, founder Kartik Gaggar described the books as an offline companion to Rooftop's online courses, something to work through at your own pace between lessons.

The ten Artventures titles on Rooftop

1. Artventures of Pichwai

Pichwai comes from Nathdwara, a temple town in Rajasthan's Rajsamand district about 45 kilometres from Udaipur. The word joins pichh, meaning back, and wai, meaning hanging. A pichwai is the painted cloth hung behind Shrinathji, the seven-year-old form of Krishna worshipped in the Pushtimarg tradition. The temple changes the cloth with the season and the festival, so there is a pichwai for Annakoot, another for Sharad Purnima and another for Janmashtami. The base is hand-spun cotton, starched and dried before the painter begins, and one large piece can take weeks or even months.

Rooftop built the Pichwai books with master artist Rajaram Sharma, who trained under Tulsidasji Chitrakar of the Shrinathji temple. Artventures of Pichwai Elementary brings in Gopi, a storyteller mascot, and starts children on the cows, trees and lotuses that fill every pichwai. Artventures of Pichwai Essentials explains the colour palette and the figures of Shrinathji, Yamuna Ji and Shri Mahaprabhu Ji. It uses four Shrinathji paintings as references and teaches lotus designs and borders step by step. Artventures of Pichwai Expert is for learners ready for the fine detail Pichwai is known for. All three come together in the Pichwai set.

2. Artventures of Mata ni Pachedi

Mata ni Pachedi means behind the mother goddess, and its story starts with exclusion. About four hundred years ago, the Vaghari community of Gujarat was kept out of temples. So they painted the goddess on cotton cloth and prayed to her there, and the cloth became the shrine. It is painted in red, black and white, and it is sometimes called the Kalamkari of Gujarat.

The books draw on the Chitara family of Ahmedabad. Bhulabhai Chunilal Chitara was the first artist to win the National Award for Mata ni Pachedi. The paintings in the series come mainly from his sons, Chandrakant, Kiran, Vikram and Vinod Chitara. Artventures of Mata ni Pachedi Elementary introduces children to the goddess figures and the basic motifs. Artventures of Mata ni Pachedi Essentials covers the history and the tools of the Vaghari tradition. It then moves through celestial scenes, Lord Ganesha and the rooster, and on to compositions such as Mataji's worshippers and the patterned pakshi, or bird. The Expert edition takes on full narrative panels of the kind painted around the goddess. Rooftop also pairs Mata ni Pachedi with Pichwai in its Devotional Arts of India combo, since both began as cloth hung for a deity.

3. Artventures of Phad

Phad is a scroll painting from Bhilwara in Rajasthan, and it was made to be performed. A traditional phad is about five feet high and thirty to forty feet long. Bhopas, the singer-priests of folk deities such as Devnarayan and Pabuji, unroll it at night and sing the god's story panel by panel while the audience follows the pictures. The painters come from the Joshi family, who have held the craft for centuries. Phad artist Prakash Joshi told Rooftop that the first phad was made when Devnarayan took samadhi.

The books carry the knowledge of Kalyan Joshi, a National Award-winning Phad master from the same family. Artventures of Phad Elementary brings in Raju the mascot. It teaches children the colours and borders of Phad first, then simple motifs like human faces, umbrellas and banana trees. Essentials explains the history of Phad and the Joshi family's role as its keepers, then teaches instruments, fish, animals and borders. Artventures of Phad Expert moves to animals, birds, reptiles, instruments and human figures, and ends with detailed scenes taken from the grand scrolls themselves. Phad and Cheriyal are also sold together as the Scroll Arts of India combo.

4. Artventures of Cheriyal

Cheriyal painting comes from Cheriyal village in Telangana and grew out of the older Nakashi tradition. Like Phad, it was made for performers. Storytellers unrolled long Cheriyal scrolls while they sang the legends of the communities who supported them, and the same painters made masks for those performances. The backgrounds are almost always red, from vermilion, and the figures have wide eyes and strong expressions. Rooftop likes to call Cheriyal India's traditional comic strip, because a scroll reads panel after panel like one.

The series was made with the Dhanalakota family of Hyderabad, who have practised Cheriyal for more than four generations. Elementary follows Meenu the mascot through Nakashi history, patterns, borders and scenes of village life, with step-by-step animals, trees and characters from folklore. Artventures of Cheriyal Essentials traces the art back through the Dhanalakota family and explains its colours and natural dyes. The Expert edition goes furthest. It explains the religious meaning of the colours, how the scrolls were used in performance and mask-making, and what contemporary Cheriyal artists have added to the form.

5. Artventures of Kalighat

Kalighat painting grew up in the 19th century in the lanes around the Kalighat Kali temple in Kolkata. Patua families painted on paper and sold the paintings to pilgrims as souvenirs, so the style was built for speed. It uses one confident outline, flat colour and almost nothing in the background. The early paintings showed Durga, Lakshmi and scenes from the Ramayana. As Kolkata changed under British rule, the patuas started painting the city too, and poking fun at it. The cat with a fish in its mouth, one of the best-known Kalighat images, is a jab at the hypocrisy of the time. The style later shaped the work of the modern painter Jamini Roy.

The Kalighat books are built on the work of award-winning master artist Anwar Chitrakar. Artventures of Kalighat Elementary starts children on animals and busy market scenes. Artventures of Kalighat Essentials explains the role of the patuas and teaches the parts that give the style its character: facial expressions, the folds of clothing and character design. Artventures of Kalighat Expert moves into symbolic storytelling, complex compositions and the shading that gives Kalighat figures their weight. The three are sold together as the Kalighat set.

6. Artventures of Madhubani

Madhubani painting, also called Mithila painting, comes from the Mithila region of Bihar and Nepal. For generations, women painted it on the mud walls and floors of their homes for weddings and festivals. It moved onto paper in the 1960s. It has five main styles. Bharni fills figures with bold colour. Kachni builds everything from fine hatched lines. Tantrik draws on sacred symbols and deities, Godna borrows from tattoo patterns, and Kohbar belongs to the marriage chamber, full of fish, lotus and bamboo. Whatever the style, a Madhubani painting leaves almost no empty space.

The Madhubani title follows the same three steps as the rest of the series, from first motifs in Elementary to full compositions in Expert, and all three books are listed on Rooftop's Madhubani page. Madhubani is one of the most copied art forms online, so the books work well alongside Rooftop's guide on how to buy authentic Madhubani paintings. Once you have drawn a Madhubani line yourself, it becomes much easier to see the difference between a hand-painted line and a printed one.

7. Artventures of Warli

Warli is the painting of the Warli community of Palghar and Thane in Maharashtra. It is built from circles, triangles and lines. Circles come from the sun and moon, triangles from mountains and pointed trees, and two triangles joined at the tip make a human body. Traditionally it was painted in white rice paste on mud walls, often as the chowk, the square painting made for weddings. Because the shapes are so simple, Warli is one of the easiest art forms to start. It is also one of the hardest to compose well, because a good Warli scene holds dozens of moving figures in balance.

The books carry the work of the Mhase family, three generations of Warli painters. Sadashiv Mhase is the son of the late Padma Shri Jivya Soma Mhase, the artist credited with reviving Warli, and his sons Pravin and Vijay paint with him. Artventures of Warli Elementary brings in Vishu the mascot, who teaches shapes and borders first. Children then learn the Warli man and woman, saints, musicians and Aasra birds, and finally compose their own village scenes. Essentials builds the motif vocabulary step by step for older beginners. The Expert edition adds theory pages on origin stories, religious practice and festivals, and teaches full compositions from the work of Pravin, Sadashiv and Vijay Mhase. Warli and Gond are paired in the Tribal Arts of India combo.

8. Artventures of Gond

Gond art belongs to the Gond people of central India, especially the Pardhan Gonds of Madhya Pradesh, who were the community's singers and keepers of its oral history. On walls and floors they painted digna patterns for good luck and scenes from the forest. In the 1980s, Jangarh Singh Shyam moved from the village of Patangarh to Bhopal, met the artist Jagdish Swaminathan and took the art onto paper and canvas. A Gond painting is easy to recognise because every figure works as a container. A tiger, a Mahua tree or a fish is outlined and then filled with dots, dashes, fish scales or seed shapes, so the whole surface seems to move.

The series was made with tips and techniques from master Gond artist Venkat Singh Shyam. Artventures of Gond Elementary follows Golu the mascot through the origins of the art and keeps children busy with connect-the-dots and complete-the-picture activities. Artventures of Gond Essentials explains the history and life of the Gond community and uses paintings of peacocks and fish as references. It teaches eight patterns step by step, along with aquatic animals, birds and other fauna. Artventures of Gond Expert takes on the full, layered compositions Gond is known for. All three are available as the Gond set.

9. Artventures of Bhil

Bhil painting comes from the Bhil community, India's second-largest tribal group, whose painting tradition is centred in Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. Its signature is the dot. Every figure, and often the ground behind it, is covered in rows of dots, and for Bhil painters each dot calls on an ancestor. The paintings show gods, animals, harvests and festivals, and the Pithora horse appears again and again. For generations the art lived on mud walls. Bhuri Bai, now a Padma Shri artist, was the first to paint it on paper.

The Bhil books are co-authored by Bhuri Bai and Lado Bai. Lado Bai was working as a construction labourer when the artist Jagdish Swaminathan saw her wall murals and encouraged her to paint on paper. Artventures of Bhil Elementary brings in Ramudi the mascot and teaches six Bhil patterns and the basics of dot work through simple designs of flowers and animals. Artventures of Bhil Essentials introduces both artists and uses four paintings, including the Pithora horse and monkeys, as visual references. It teaches patterns, borders and the layering that gives Bhil paintings depth. Artventures of Bhil Expert moves to large compositions rooted in ritual, folklore and the forest.

10. Artventures of Baiga

Baiga art comes from the Baiga community of Mandla, Dindori, Balaghat and nearby districts of Madhya Pradesh. The Baigas traditionally did not plough the land, out of respect for the earth as a mother. Baiga legend says the goddess Mavai gave them their art as a reward for that care. Much of Baiga art lives on the body. Godna, the tattoo tradition, marks the stages of a woman's life, from the first mark on the forehead in girlhood to the chhati godai on the chest after childbirth. Those tattoo patterns later moved onto paper.

Artventures of Baiga Elementary tells the history to children through a story. Artventures of Baiga Essentials spends about a third of its pages on context before you draw anything. That context covers the five-colour palette, the deities Bada Dev, Baghsur and Kali Mata, and a full section on Godna, including the women called Godharins who do the tattooing. Then come six reference paintings, six pattern exercises, seven pages of motifs and thirteen creative exercises. One asks you to fill the whole background behind a peacock, because Baiga painters leave no space empty. Artventures of Baiga Expert adds a dictionary of patterns and motifs, the story of how the art moved from walls to paper, sections on Mahua Devi and Mavai, and advanced compositions. The reference paintings are by Jodhaiya Bai, Sakun Bai, Ramrati Bai, Rupa Baiga and Hema Baiga, and each is credited on its page. The three come together as the Baiga set.

When you want to watch the hand that made it

A book can show you a motif. It cannot show you how fast the brush moves or where a Phad painter makes the first stroke. For that, nine of the ten Artventures art forms also have a Rooftop course taught by a master artist, often from the same family that shaped the book. You can learn Pichwai with Rajaram Sharma, Mata ni Pachedi with the Chitara family, Phad with Kalyan Joshi, Cheriyal with the Dhanalakota family, Kalighat with Anwar Chitrakar, Madhubani with Padma Shri Dulari Devi, Warli with the Mhase family and Gond with Venkat Raman Singh Shyam. Bhil has two courses, one with Bhuri Bai and one with Lado Bai. Baiga is the only title without a course so far. For now, its Expert book, with five Baiga painters credited inside, is the closest thing to a Baiga teacher on Rooftop.