The Rice is not only a staple food but also a unique art material. Through the skillful hands of artisans, roasted rice grains are combined into paintings about landscapes and people in Vietnam, and graft rice paintings become an art specialty imprinted with the Vietnamese soul.
Each artwork is handmade and exclusive since it comes directly from the heart and soul of the artist. A completed rice painting must go through different stages. The first and foremost step is rice selection: the selected grain rice must be strong, shiny, and solid. Each type of rice is used for different purposes: ordinary rice for thin details; sticky rice for big details and broken rice for small details.
After choosing the suitable kind of rice, the next step is rice roasting, without the use of any coloring chemicals. The color of rice will depend on temperature and time. Roasted rice may have 27 shades from white, yellow, orange, brown, cockroach, black,… During this process, it is indispensable that the rice not burn or crack. Then, the artist has to sketch an outline of the picture on a wooden block. This is the stepping-stone to shape the details and to arrange them in the picture. The more detailed the sketch is, the more beautiful the picture will become.
After completing the sketch, the artisan starts using the tweezer to arrange and graft the grains on the already sketched wooden frame. Lastly, rice is preferred by mice and insects, so artists have to apply a varnish treatment and chemical substance to preserve the colors as well as enhance the aesthetics of the painting. The most prominent feature of rice painting is in the raw material, followed by the meticulousness and feel of color when roasting. Moreover, a beautiful rice painting must meet the requirements of shape, color, layout, ratio, and more importantly the fit of the rice and the arrangement of the motifs.
