La Palma

Fernando Llort moved to La Palma in 1972 and began teaching local people a way of drawing and painting he had developed, flat naive figures of campesinos, churches, birds and mountains in bright outlined colour, and the town took it up: workshops were set up, a cooperative formed, and the style spread onto wood carvings, seeds, ceramics and eventually onto the walls of the town itself, which are painted in it. It became the country's most recognisable visual idiom, used on everything from souvenirs to the facade of the capital's cathedral until its removal in 2011. La Palma sits at around a thousand metres in pine country near the Honduran border, cool and green, with workshops through the town and Llort's own house.

Highlights

• Painted buildings - the town walls done in the Llort style.
• The workshops - the wood, seed and ceramic pieces made in the town.
• The cooperative - the organisation that spread the craft.
• Pine mountain setting - the cool highland country around the town.

When to go

November to April in the dry season. Weekday mornings are when the workshops work. The town is cool and can be cold at night. Weekends bring visitors from the capital.

Before you go

The style is heavily commercialised and much of what is sold is mass-produced rather than hand-worked. Quality varies widely. The town is small and takes half a day. Selling pressure is strong.

Nearby

Cerro El Pital lies north; Miramundo is close by.