The painter is well known in Thanh Hoa City for his ancient-style folk paintings painted on wooden trays. He has tried to paint calligraphy on lotus leaves recently, and all the paintings have sold out.

Painting calligraphy on different materials has been tried by many painters, but Tuyen is the only painter making calligraphy paintings on lotus leaves.

One day, he saw a dried lotus leaf that had lost its chlorophyll, revealing beautiful natural veins. The veins are difficult to depict, even by best painters. This prompted him to take full advantage of the veins and use lotus leaves as materials for his calligraphy paintings.

Tuyen and his brother in law, Nguyen Minh Quan, born in 1991, began studying the characteristics of lotus leaves. It took Tuyen and Quan nearly one year to collect lotus leaves and try paintings on them. After many failures, they found the best way to make prepare the leaves for painting.

It is necessary to choose leaves that are not too old or premature. The best time for choosing leaves are early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

After being picked, lotus leaves must be steamed and dried to remove chlorophyll. After that, the lotus leaves are pressed until they are flat but do not lose the veins. This is the most difficult stage, because this could damage the leaves.

Quan revealed that though the standard process is good, the loss rate is still high: only one out of every 10 leaves can meet the requirements to be used for paintings.

The product is always in high demand. The leaves are carried to many cities and provinces throughout the country.

According to Tuyen, painting on lotus leaves is a new type of art. Lotus leaves with veins are naturally beautiful and painters just need to add more patterns to obtain nice images.

He said lotus leaves can be used as a foundation for painting scenes, or for calligraphy which can look both classic and modern. Tuyen’s paintings range from VND150,000 to VND7 million each, depending on their size and perspective.

Tuyen said he and his co-workers plan to build a brand for paintings on lotus leaves.

Le Duong