Ubud's Art Villages: Celuk Silver, Mas Woodcarving, Batuan Painting, and the Museums

The road from Denpasar up to Ubud passes through a string of villages that each specialise, a pattern that goes back to the courts that patronised them. Batubulan carves paras stone into the statues at every temple gate; Celuk works silver and gold, mostly for jewellery; Mas carves wood, from tourist masks to the fine hibiscus pieces in the galleries; and Batuan paints in the dense, dark, crowded style that a group of its painters developed in the 1930s. Sukawati has the art market and Peliatan, at Ubud's edge, is the dance village.

Every coach tour stops at a showroom in each, and those showrooms are large, air-conditioned and expensive. The workshops behind them are where the work is done, and most will let you watch.

Watching is free at most family workshops if you ask; buying is not expected. Classes take the same skills into a few hours with an instructor and you leave with the piece: a silver ring or pendant made from sheet and wire with saw, file and torch in Celuk or Ubud; a small carving in soft wood in Mas; a batik panel with wax and dye; a painting lesson in the Batuan or Keliki miniature style. Classes run three to four hours, the studios provide everything, and the results are better than you expect because the instructors do the hard cuts. Book for the morning; workshops are hot by afternoon.

Three collections are worth an afternoon. Puri Lukisan, on the main street, was founded in 1956 and holds the Pita Maha generation, the painters who worked with Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet in the 1930s and created the Ubud style. The Neka Art Museum in Sanggingan has the broadest survey, including foreign painters who settled on Bali. ARMA, the Agung Rai museum in Pengosekan, has a fine Batuan collection, gardens, and a dance stage most evenings. Entry to each is modest and includes a drink at Neka and ARMA. None takes more than an hour and a half unless you want it to.

Prices in the showrooms are two to three times the workshop price and the coach driver's commission is inside them. In a workshop, ask the price, offer about two-thirds, and settle in the middle; silver is sold by weight plus work, and 925 should be stamped. Genuine antiques are rare and export of anything old is regulated, so treat every antique as a reproduction unless there is paperwork. For a day that combines the villages with a class, see the cooking class guide for the food side and the getting around guide for hiring a driver for the loop.