JAT & Leo Burnett Create Petal-Powered Paint

Gloriously coloured flowers, left as religious or festival offerings, are a common sight in Sri Lanka's many temples, but their life is short, and they are usually discarded at the end of the day as trash.

To  breathe new life the floral tributes, and pay homage to the country's rich heritage of temple art, JAT Holdings and Leo Burnett Sri Lanka have come up with a cool new innovation, which turns the flowers into a revolutionary new paint.

Developed in collaboration with Leo Burnett Sri Lanka, Petal Paint sees pigments from dried flower petals transformed into liquid paint using innovation from the research and development team at JAT Holdings, in a process that combines ancient traditions and cutting-edge manufacturing technology.

Image: Daily Mirror

The resulting paint is destined for use in the creation and restoration of sacred temple artworks, often found in the form of wall murals in shrines. Many of the murals are faded and the wall paint available in local markets does not always match the traditional colours or texture of the original.

“We created Petal Paint to give something back to Sri Lanka’s heritage and culture,” says Richard Gunawardene, head of marketing at JAT Holdings. “Petal Paint combines the best of our traditional culture – the use of pigments from nature – with the most advanced technology in paint manufacturing, to create a paint that matches the traditional temple mural colors and also provides a more long-lasting solution to temple artists.”

Image: JAT Holdings

Launching initially in five shades - Lotus Red, Pigeonwing Blue, Trumpet Yellow, Marigold Orange and Temple Flower White - Petal Paint will be made available to artists working on temple murals. A pilot project using Petal Paint to restore faded murals as well as create new wall murals is already underway at Sri Sudarmarama Poorana Maha Viharaya, Ganegama, Akuressa.

As it takes around 200 kilograms of dried flowers to make 50 litres of paint, a nationwide campaign is set to be launched, calling on the public collect the dried flowers discarded from temples. In addition to collecting the natural pigments needed for Petal Paint production, it's hoped the initiative will reduce the daily waste thrown out by temples across the country.