Search This Blog

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Frescos of Sigiriya, Sri Lanka in Paper Quilling

                                                                                                                                                                        A little bit of history on Sigiriya for some of you who do not know about it (article from the Book Sri Lankan  history)                                                                                                                                                  
        Sigiriya being a fortress, had been well designed for its defenses by having ramparts and moats built around it. There are several approaches to the inner city and the most prominent is the Western entrance. From the summit of the rock, the land areas up to distances of tens of miles can be watched making it hard for the enemy to make a surprise attack to the kingdom.
King Kassapa had reverted his fortress to an ecological wonder by having Royal Pleasure Gardens, Water Gardens , Fountain Gardens and Boulder Gardens made inside the inner city as well as at the palace premises on the Rock summit.
The most renowned is the Sigiriya Rock Paintings or Frescoes of Sigiri Damsels locally called as ' Sigiri Apsaras' painted on a Western Rock face cavity about 100 meters high from the rock base .There now remains around 21 paintings of Sigiriya Damsels but there had been around five hundred paintings during King Kassapa's time along several other places of the same   Western Rock face                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   This is one of the largest wall hangings I did in quilling. It is 24'' by 18'' and I have been quilling around 3000 little bits for the picture. The frescos are very old and the colours are not very visible, so I have used my own colours. I bet the paintings may have been multi coloured and very bright cause even after many years of being exposed to sun and rain, they still look beautiful. It took me about a month to complete & wasn't very easy either. Hope you like it