Miniature Painting Apprenticeship in India

Samantha Buckley, alumna of The School and short course tutor, is the 2010 - 2011 recipient of the one year Indian Apprenticeship Programme.The Indian Apprenticeship Programme is a partnership between the Traditional Arts Foundation and The Prince's School. The apprenticeship is offered to outstanding alumni who have made a substantial contribution to the field of traditional Indian arts and crafts. As an artist and academic, Samantha has researched traditional miniature painting practices for over ten years, culminating in her Master's degree at The School in 2006.The programme will provide Samantha with educational training in the crafts of Miniature, Pichhavi and Tagore painting. She will work under the direct tutelage of India's leading artists, including master paper maker Hasan Khagzi of Sanganeer, master miniaturists Amir Ahmed of Jaipur and Lalit Sharma of Udaipur, and noted academic Dr Desmond Lazaro, director of the Traditional Arts Foundation.The training and tuition offered to Samantha will extend her skills and knowledge base, enabling her to further her own art practice and teaching initiatives in the UK.Samantha says of her experience so far: "During the last 3 months I have experienced being part of a living tradition. I have been working alongside a traditional craftsman, who has taught me how to prepare pigments, from grinding the rock through to the final paint preparation. This laborious process lasted 15 days.Dr. Lazaro has introduced me to new surfaces on which to work. In the last month I assisted with cloth preparation and pasting cloth to board, as well as preparing handmade paper.The scale of work we have undertaken has been a new experience. Having previously only worked on a small scale, I now find myself assisting on large pieces over 6 ft high. To this end I have had to learn new brush techniques to suit the scale of painting.In the three months of study I have learnt so much. It has been a difficult journey at times, but also an extremely rewarding one. I look forward to the next chapter."