ALEBRIJE PROCESS
Thanks to the fact that the wood of this tree has multiple shapes, it is then possible that artisans can use this advantage of nature to put a little of their ingenious imagination and with the help of some manual tools, begin to give life to countless animals. like jaguars, cats, dogs, snakes among others that come from the imagination come to life through the hands of artisans. All this, let’s remember, that the Alebrijes of Oaxaca take time to make, some can take up to months depending on the size and decoration in terms of painting.
Wood carved
They work with different types of wood such as cedar, parota, walnut, but the most popular is copal wood, since it is the wood of the region, this wood is where the incense that is burned in churches and festivities is extracted. It works when it is green, since it is considered that this way the wood is usually softer for carving, tools such as machete, gouges, knives are used.
It is necessary to remove the bark from the wood, to then define the shape that will be given to it, which often arises through the natural shape of the branch. There are two types of carvings, those that are made from a single trunk and those that are assembled. The carving time will depend on the size of the piece and the type of wood, from 1 day to a month in large pieces with different animals.
Drying and sanding
After carving a piece, the next step is drying, since as we mentioned before, the wood is carved green, traditionally it is dried by exposing it to sunlight outdoors, this procedure can last depending on the thickness and size of the piece. The figure can last from weeks (in small pieces) to years (in large pieces).
After drying, a smooth finish is given to the wood with different types of sandpaper, the first is made with a canvas sandpaper to remove the roughness caused by the knife and the second is made with a water sandpaper, so that it remains a Uniform straightening, all of this is done by hand.
Curing process
Then follows the curing process where the wood is completely submerged in gasoline drums for several days. It is also necessary to give baths with special liquids against termites and moths in order to immunize the wood.
Restoration
When going through the drying process, the wood tends to crack to remove moisture. In this step we have to open the cracks more and wedge them under pressure with previously cured dry wood and resistol. After this it is necessary to sand the piece again, until that it remains without any crack.
Afterwards, the entire piece will be given a resistol bath and one more sealer.
At this stage of the process, the wood has already been under observation and is completely ready to receive a color bath of approximately 4 layers of paint, (after each layer of paint, it will be sanded with water sandpaper, to avoid roughness) until is completely uniform in a base color.
Decoration
To decorate each piece we use acrylic paint as well as different tools such as brushes, brushes and maguey thorns, each of these tools give us a specific stroke, the thinnest dots and lines are achieved with the tips of the agave thorn and the thickest lines are achieved with brushes.
In each piece we capture different elements, each one with specific meanings such as fretwork from our Zapotec culture, where the pyramid of the sun will never be missing and we relate each color to an element of nature, the color red represents total power, the sun, power. of fire, coffee the power of the earth, blue and green represent the power of water and wind, when we paint in black and white we represent the moon and the power of the night.
When we paint a work we base it on its meaning as an animal, for example the bull is an animal that represents strength and power, therefore we will represent it with warm colors representing the power of the sun.
All the charm and magic that surround these figures that have animal and mythological shapes lies in the imagination and in the color that the craftsmen put on them..
There are no limits to the Alebrijes, there are no limits to the imagination.