San Pedro La Laguna has developed a small but genuine art community, with local Tz'utujil Maya painters and a scattering of resident expat artists running workshops for travellers. The style is a naïf tradition rooted in the work of the late Diego Isaías Hernández Mendez and other self-taught Maya painters who achieved international recognition in the 1970s, depicting village life and ceremony in vivid flat colour.
Workshops typically last two to three hours and cost very little. You do not need prior experience — the point is to leave with a painting you made, not a portfolio piece. The studios are mostly signposted on the lanes between the two docks. The best way to find a teacher is to walk until you see canvases propped in a doorway.