Vietnamese lacquer painting: materials used.

I’ve now lived in Vietnam for over a year! The best thing is that I started taking lessons to learn the traditional lacquer painting technique. These are the materials needed:

Lacquer. There are two types commonly used. The black one is called simply ‘black’ in old Vietnamese. It is thicker, stickier and darker, best used for sticking things onto the wooden base. The other type is more transparent, but appropriately called ‘cockroach wing’ brown. The lacquer is spread on glass and mixed with powdered pigments.

Mineral pigments. These are semi-precious stones ground to a fine powder, they are very expensive and surprisingly heavy.

Brushes made from bamboo strips surrounding a core of human hair. The bristles are chiseled and sanded to get a fine layer of hair, suitable to paint thin layers of lacquer. They are long-lasting brushes, because as the hair wears away, cutting and sanding the wood will reveal more hair.

Silver leaf. It comes in little paper-bound packets.

Buffalo horn spatulas. The semi-transparent ones are more flexible, and more comfortable to mix paint with. These can also be cut and sanded to get the preferred shape.

Ceramic bowls are used to store the lacquer. Once poured in, the lacquer is covered with grease paper to prevent air getting in ‘killing’ the lacquer. I’ve been surprised at how such a simple system is effective in preventing the lacquer from drying out.

Eggshell. Easy to get! It gives great textures and light colours that are otherwise hard to obtain, given the honey coloured base of the lacquer.

This article provides some information on the origin of the Vietnamese lacquer technique and the sourcing of materials. This one includes some information on the major Vietnamese artists who have used lacquer. Another blog post that I enjoyed is here. And more information on lacquer painting research is being done by Asiarta.

#Lacquer #Asia #Painting #Vietnam #MyArtPractice