Cradle


This piece is a wooden swinging cradle produced by the Sindhi people of Pakistan. The painting style on it is called Jandi. Jandi is a type of lacquer work and is an economic tool for the Sindhi community.  
 
Jandi is made by chiseling wood into a rough shape before turning it on a lathe to refine the shape and sand it. Next the colored lac is applied by pressing the hard, crayon-like sticks against the spinning wood.  The friction allows the sticks of lac to soften and transfer the color to the wood. Once the base colors are laid down decorative patterns are etched, inlayed, or hatched. Hatching is a technique of using closely spaced lines to create shading.