Live from Japan!

While we were walking through a village in Bali we found this little stall on the side of the road filled with gorgeous, traditional Balinese art. Along with our entire Intrepid travel group we went into the stall to check out the guys work.

The most wonderful thing about the little shop was the man running it. He was also the artist of all the pieces hanging in the shop. In fantastic English he explained to us the process behind making each piece and gave us a short demonstration.

It was so interesting to see how each piece was created, and to find out how much time goes into each one. A medium sized piece, according to the artist, takes about three days to make. First he must pencil in the design on paper. Then he traces the outline with an ink pen. Then he uses a brush to ink in the drawing and add shadows. Last, he uses paints to add color.

On top of that, the frames were also hand carved. He explained to us that each frame, again for a medium size, would take about a day to make. So, in total, each piece requires about four days work.

And it definitely showed, the pictures were gorgeous. The most stunning thing about most of them was the color and level of detail. Everything was so fine and precise. The only strange thing to me was how low the price was, a medium-size piece was only 8500 rupiah (about $8.50). And that was his set price, there was no bargaining.

After looking at his work and hearing his story we decided that a piece should go home with us. We found one that we particularly liked with a gorgeous green jungle scene. I am pretty sure that we made this man’s day. He sold so many pieces to our group that he offered to package them up and bring them to our hotel later, that way we wouldn’t have to lug them all around town. What a great guy!