Learning to Make Incense Stencils

A stencil with sandalwood powder and tools

The Dr Sun Yat-Sen Garden in Vancouver's Chinatown offers many different activities, like musical performances, tea ceremonies, and incense stencilling. 

I had never done incense stencilling before and had an opportunity to learn about it today.

Stencil filled with sandalwood powder

The instructor didn't quite explain it properly, but apparently when you're focused on making the incense stencil, it can help you relax and feel like the activity is like a kind of meditation.

You're supposed to make the incense stencil in a bed of pressed white ash, but at the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Garden, we made the incense stencil on a piece of paper.

We had to hold our stencil in place with one hand, and with the other hand, use a tiny scoop to scoop sandalwood powder into the stencil. But, our instructor warned, you had to focus and not spill the powder outside the stencil and not too much inside the stencil either.

Then we took a mini scraping tool to move the sandalwood powder to the empty spaces in the stencil. Any extra powder should be scooped up with the mini spoon. I spilled some powder outside the stencil... 

Once we had filled in the stencil and scooped out the extra powder, we used the top end of one of the tools to tap twice in four different areas of the stencil.

The completed incense stencil

Finally, we were instructed to lift up the stencil and create a three-dimensional design in sandalwood that, if it was made on a bed of ash, could be lit as incense.

I didn't know about these stencils at all and that the incense can be lit in this way, but the ritual of making it is very interesting! The activity is similar to colouring books or knitting in that it helps clear your mind, or at least focus on the task at hand.