Service Description

Medicine Buddha and TIBETAN painting A foray into Himalayan painting for a summer holiday in the hills. We use a traditional Tibetan iconometry handbook as a source and respect that this is also a sacred art, so will aim for replication rather than recreation. This is not to say the art form is not full of characters, devils and life - it is; anyone with bellies like that has character. This class will involve tracing and hand accuracy and is a good chance to sharpen skills in this essential step. You will need tracing paper and the usual siyah qalami miniature painting materials (for painting ink on paper). Graph paper optional. You can then use the skills gained in painting podgy dodgy demon tummies for your own creative works after this mountain breather. Having grown up with Buddhist imagery I can conclude that one of the functions of this imagery is to answer this simple question: how does it make you feel when you look at it? I realised they acted as reminders and we are simply meant to copy them. I look at Buddha > eyes are calm > now my eyes are calm too > I feel calm. I look at a manic wrathful figure > eyes are lolling about > I have a mini panic attack > I regain my executive function and am jolted into remembering the thing that is most important and urgent. A similar mechanism occurs with the glaring, snarling lions outside Chinese banks. It makes you think twice about that heist you were planning, despite knowing that they’re not real; they put your mind in a brief place of doubt and perhaps this is preventative. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never robbed a bank and don’t plan to. Lastly, although we are going to try our best to strictly follow the lines (unlucky not to), spending time with Tibetan, Thai, Japanese, Indian, Chinese and other Buddhist and Hindu priests, monks and religious figures reassured me that there are no mistakes, we should be gentle with ourselves and relax into it and that if your phone rings in the middle of it (theirs, not mine) or you suddenly need to pee in the middle of a ritual (…) it’s okay because all the best gods are anyway taking our humanity into account.