The Russian Store offers a collection of woodenware vessels with red and gold paintings of flowers, leaves and berries set against a jet-black background with fiery-red trim, worldwide recognized as Khokhloma. This unique combination of colors and technique applied to vases, decorative platters, and serving plaques has won many honors and awards in Europe, Canada, and Japan. Hand crafted and decorated by Russian artists, these items will serve as original accessories easily blending with interior of your home. Now you can buy Khokhloma at The Russian Store.
Khokhloma products have reserved a 300-year old tradition of unique decoration technology that at the same time makes them highly practical. It's hard to believe, but Khokhloma woodenware kitchen utensils are waterproof, heat resistant and unaffected by the nutritive acids. Almost invulnerable, isn't it?
That's why it's no wonder that the production process is laborious and prolix. After the shaped pieces have dried in the kiln rooms, a thin layer of brown clay "primer" is applied by hand and they are kiln dried again. After three coats of oil are applied to the primed pieces and they are air dried, their slightly sticky surfaces are now ready for tinning. Today powdered aluminum replaces the once used tin. With the tinning process finished, and the pieces kiln dried for a third time, these shiny, silvered works are ready for the artist's hand.
Each silvered piece is painted by hand, without any initial sketching, insuring that every one is a unique work of art. The magic of Golden Khokhloma is in the final step. When the lacquer coating is applied, any of the ornament that the artist has left silver turns to a beautiful "Gilt" illusion. Every piece takes approximately 58 days to make, and some up to four months.
Khokhloma painting is a magic process when ordinary white wood acquires beauty and brightness of gilding. The origin of methods of painting woodenware in distinctive gold color, without using gold itself, is still a secret for specialists.
Khokhloma folk craft is constantly growing and developing. Adopting the best traditions, one generation changes another, and gifted youth flows into the rows of honored masters like tiny brooks flow into a big river. The ornament has become more diverse, merry and rich, refreshed by decoratively fantastic pictures of berries and flowers of forests from the left bank of the Volga river, fruits, birds and animals. It is not accidentally that Khokhloma art is so popular either in Russia or abroad. Search of new shapes and ornaments is going on, and we will be able to become the eye-witnesses for new discoveries and success.
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