Gold Painting Techniques In Thailand

These techniques of Gold are done in the village of Nantaram Lacquer ware Museum They have a little museum there. The master Ram Jamusee was doing the painting. I , Sha Sha Higby was one of the students. You could try this with gum arabic watercolor as resist and urushi lacquer or oil base.
I had a great time at the Asian Lacquer Craft Exchange Program in Chiang Mai (thanks to Prof. Sakurako Matsushima)
I just performed and gave an exhibit with participants from Thailand, Japan, Korea, Viet Nam, Myanmar, France, and Cambodia. I was very honored to be the American participant! The similar event will be happening in Hanoi in August if anyone is interested there were tours to the protected lacquer tree of Thailand huge and round and tall. Yet, It is forbidden to take the lacquer from this tree because it is protected. They have to import urushi lacquer from other neighboring countries, while they are trying to revive the urushi lacquer craft.
After the exhibit was set up and we went to visit temples on the mountain and artists homes, and a marvelous artist who worked in with stubs of charcoal and played a “heart harp” (I call it) decorated with lacquer painted on in gold leaf which is then scratched through the gold leaf to make a black line drawing. Urushi lacquer takes some time to harden so you have time to scratch a free form design through the blackness to the gold leaf. We visited an amazing elephant carving and more temples of scratched gold leaf but they must have scratched through a slow drying red paint? We also visited workshops in villages where they coil thin strips of bamboo as well as some traditional Thayo techniques where clay coils of wood ash or bone ash and slow drying urushi coiled into designs. Amazing potters could coil huge vessels by hand. In Nantaram, the village in the outskirts of Chiang Mai, We took a workshop had all the Lanna techniques for painting on water-soluble yellow glue and then applying gold leaf and washing off the designs. I had actually studied here before maybe 8- 10 years before.
This was followed by a visit to a temple just for male prayer completely made of intricately hammered aluminum so beautiful. More days were followed by workshops in all of these techniques relating to lacquer, scratching through gold with a metal pen, and shell inlay demonstrations with a master from Japan, as well as another folk craft of painting on lively linear designs with fine handmade plastic tubes of paint (though acrylic) and of course my performance that had its own world filled with lacquer pieces within the costume.
There is another one of these conferences in which I will perform in Hanoi in August 17-23, they have wonderful lacquer art more as painting and fine art in Hanoi, which started from World War II.

[@tremolux13]

This is beautiful. .. Just came across your video. . I must say that looks amazing.

[@evelynbagnasco7293]

I love this video and your work experience. The only gold size I could find in Thailand, was a black gold size and I really loved it. I wonder if there is a recipe for it, or if this product can be bought anywhere. Perhaps online. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear from you. With admiration. Evelyn

[@shashahigby7171]

Come to my opening at ARTHOUSE on R in Sacramento next Friday the 14th. Can talk about the experience!