A phad is a painted cloth five feet high and up to thirty feet long that holds an entire epic in one continuous field. It is not hung — the bhopa unrolls it at night as a portable shrine and sings episodes from it while the bhopi holds an oil lamp against one section at a time.

So the design reads out of order, lit a patch at a time. Kesriya orange goes down first, cinbar red encloses everything, lamp-black outline goes on last over finished paint. The sized khadi ground is never hidden — it is the space between the figures.