Delve into Sri Lankan Lacquer-Work Painting

Try your hand at Sri Lankan lacquer-work painting – ‘laaksha’ – an art the dates back over a thousand years, to a time when the ancient city of Anuradhapura’s kings ruled over the island. It is another vanishing tradition that we are working to preserve. Laaksha artists in fact use neither paint nor paintbrushes. The pigments are made from ‘lac’ or ‘lakada’, a resin secreted by lacquer insects that is collected from shrubs, mixed with mineral dyes and heated until it melts. Slim sticks or, if the work is very intricate, fingernails, are then used to trace geometric patterns onto wooden jewelry boxes, vases and bowls.