Starter Kit. Idea 35 of 500. Cluster 2
Fresco and mural painting workshops with local artists
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
The first step
Invite a local artist who paints in the fresco tradition to lead a 3-hour workshop copying one motif onto a small plaster tile. Test it with friends at cost, photograph the finished tiles, and send the photographs to the hotels nearest a heritage site with frescoes. A hotel booking a session for its guests is the proof.
- Who pays first
- Visitors who have just seen the ancient frescoes and want to try the technique and take a painted tile home.
- What leaves today
- The frescoes earn only ticket money; a workshop pays living artists to teach the technique and sells what the guest makes.
Ask first
- Central Cultural Fund. Ask whether artists could study or copy fresco styles at their sites.
- National Crafts Council. Ask which painters they know who teach traditional styles.
Check before you spend
Whether copying ancient fresco designs needs permission from the site's managers, and that the artists teaching agree on how their own work is used.
Find out these three numbers
- What will visitors pay for a painting class with a local artist?
- What do paints, boards and brushes cost per student?
- How many visitors at the site have an afternoon free?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya hub. Appendix
"a making-house at the gate where the mask carvers, the potters and the fresco painters work"
Fresco painters working in view at the gate is the book's own plan for Sigiriya.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.