An IT professional, a school teacher, an accountant, a mother of a 3 month old, an 8 year old girl and an 11 year old boy… What do they all have in common? Their love for mural painting. And the determination to learn something new.

A doctor, Ms. A, who joined us by taking an overnight bus from Pondicherry, works through the week, reserving weekends for interesting ways to enrich her painting skills. “I try to pick up something new every 2 years,” she said. But what better way to spend the weekend than learning a new craft?

The Kerala Mural form of painting has traditionally been a temple tradition, with the frescoes pictorially depicting religious myths and legends in vibrant colours. With the Beyond Sacred Worlds workshop, we chose to use a simple contemporary image that would illustrate the basic steps in the process.

At the beginning of the two-day workshop, taking home a finished piece of work seemed almost impossible, with many of our participants picking up a brush for the first time in their lives.

Under muralist and teacher Vishnu Vikraman’s patient tutelage, everyone was able to pick up pace quickly, learning to outline and use the spell-binding stippling technique used in the Kerala mural.

This was the second Mural Painting workshop held by the Kerala Museum, the first being Sacred Worlds in 2017.