First artisan choose the right shell for the product that has to be developed. Normally artisan choose the coconut shell which is perfectly middle halved and already smoothened outer surface. The first process is to fix or tie the thread inside the coconut shell by making hole, before joining the halved coconut shell. Then the halved coconut shell is joined by using white adhesive. After joining the halved coconut shell, the mud color cloth is wrapped over the jointed portion or middle portion of the coconut shell using synthetic adhesive to avoid breakage. Now the complete shell is prepared to paint.
Before starting the painting process the coconut shell is coated with a paste. The paste is prepared by mixing tamarind seed powder and white synthetic adhesive, small amount of water. Once the paste is prepared is applied over the complete shell as a coating. Then the white color acrylic paste is applied over the entire coconut shell as a background for painting. Before starting the painting process divide the coconut shell as three portion by marking over the coconut shell using pencil. Because the coconut shell paint depicts God and Goddesses of Orissa namely Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Maa Subhadra. Artisan starts painting directly using different types of brush without any rough sketch of the image. Finally the ornamentation of the painting is made by using 3d cone outliner as a dot on the painting.
Flow Chart: