Miniature Painting

This miniature painting belongs to the Pahari style of the Himalayan foothills, a courtly style of the Raj put kings that flourished from the 17th to the 19th century.

This painting depicts the childhood days of Lord Krishna. Krishna is known in the stories of the Bhagavata-Purana as the 8th incarnation of the god Vishnu, destined to perform great deeds and remove the evils of the world. Shown in this Indian miniature watercolor painting as a child with grey-blue skin, he is a popular deity, a divine hero who personifies superhuman powers as well as human hopes and failings. Stories of Krishna's childhood with his loving foster-mother Yashoda in a village of cow-herds are much beloved and illustrated in paintings and sculpture.

Characteristics of Oil Paintings

Those days’ oil paints require oil in order to facilitate frenzy, stable and waterproof film. Such kind of oils is known as drying oils. The other name drying oil is siccative oil. These oils are distinguished by high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids. One of the most frequent measures for siccative or drying property of oils is the iodine amount and the number of grams of iodine captivated by one hundred grams of oil. 

Oil is said to be drying if the number of iodine is greater than 130. If the range of iodine lies in the range 115-130 then the oil is said to be semi-drying oil and those with an iodine number of less than 115 are considered to be non-drying. The most common medium for artists' oil paints is the Linseed oil (Drying oil).

We know that water gets evaporated when it is exposed to air but oil does not undergo the same. Instead of that they polymerise into a dry semisolid but the rate of process can vary depending on the oil.

The main advantage of using a slow-drying quality oil paint helps an artist to develop their painting slowly and gently. With oil-based paints an artist can improve or rework their paintings very easily. The only disadvantage with this oil painting is that it might take months or years to finish. 

Oil paints also blend well with each other, making delicate disparity of color as well as more easily generating the details of light and shadow. Oil paints can be diluted with turpentine or other tightening mediators in order to build a painting in layers, on the other hand, such agents are extremely combustible and the danger of a building fire was always present.

American Painting

Much art of the American colonial period consisted of portraits, as settlers sought to establish their identities in a new world. After the new nation achieved its independence, landscapes and scenes of native flora, fauna, and folk customs began to express its unique qualities and illustrate its untapped resources.

Portraiture formed the mainstay of subject matter in colonial and federal American art, as immigrants to the New World attempted to bring a semblance of Old World civilization to their wild or, at best, provincial surroundings. When Benjamin West arrived in Rome in 1760, he was the first American artist to study in Europe. 

Upon seeing the Vatican's famous classical statue, the Apollo Belvedere, West exclaimed, "My God! How like it is to a young Mohawk warrior!" His astute comparison between a "noble savage" and the "glory that was Greece" won hearty applause from the connoisseurs. West soon emerged as Europe's foremost history painter, dropping the allegorical trappings from classical antiquity that had been the norm and basing his work on historical research.

Acrylic painting

Acrylic paint is considered to be a quick drying coat which contains a color suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. These paints can be watered down, but it becomes water-resistant on drying. Depending on how much the paint is diluted or customized with acrylic gels, media, or pastes, the completed acrylic painting can look like a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own exclusive individuality not achievable with other media.

The primary acrylic paint was invented by Leonard Bocour and Sam Golden between 1946 and 1949 under the brand Magna paint. Water-based acrylic paints were consequently sold as "latex" house paints, although acrylic dispersion uses no latex derived from a rubber tree. Soon after the water-based acrylic folders were set up as house paints, artists and companies alike began to discover the prospective of the new binders. Water-soluble artists' acrylic paints became commercially available in the 1950s, offered by Liquitex, with high-viscosity paints parallel to those made today becoming available in the early 1960s. In 1963, Rowney was the first producer to commence an artist’s acrylic paint in Europe, under the brand name Cryla.

Acrylic artist paints may be watered down and used as washes in the way of watercolor paints, but the washes are not re-hydratable once it dried out. For this reason, acrylics do not lend themselves to color elating techniques as do gum arabic depends on watercolor paints.

These acrylic paints with surface shine or dull finishes are offered, although a satin sheen is most common and some brands display a variety of finish. As with oils, pigment quantity, and particle dimension or nature can naturally affect the paint sheen. Matting agents can also be inserted during the creation to dry the finish. The artist can combine media with their paints and use topcoats or varnishes to modify or unite sheen if desired.

Contemporary Painting

Contemporary art can be described as an art produced at this near point in time or a fine art produced since World War II. It can sometimes seem to be odd with a public but still became a part of popular culture. 

This beautiful painting depicts a girl who is fearless, tough; innocence with goals and aspirations hides another world inside her soul. The inner world is being filled with full of pain, regrets, mistakes, and tremendous guilt wanting to die. What we see outside is pleasing but underneath can’t even begin to imagine.

Watercolor Painting

Watercolor is also being called as aquarelle from French. It is defined as one of the painting method. A watercolor depicts the result of an artwork. It is a medium in which the paints are made of pigments floating in a water soluble medium. Paper remains as one of the conventional and most frequent sustain for watercolor paintings. The other may include are papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. 

Since water colors are transparent it allows the light to reflect from the exterior of the paper thus providing a luminous effect. Watercolor can also be finished solid by adding some Chinese white. In the region of East Asia “brush painting or scroll painting” is called so when watercolor painting mixes with ink. 

In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the leading medium, frequently in neutral black or browns.  In India, Ethiopia and other countries also have an elongated practice of this painting.Fingerpainting with watercolor paints were originated in China.

The four major ingredients o Watercolor paint is:

• Pigments -  natural or artificial, mineral or organic;
• Arabic gum - as a folder to hold the color in suspension and secure the pigment to the painting surface;
• Additives  - like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives to change the thickness, thrashing, toughness or shade of the pigment and vehicle mixture;
• Solvent - the material used to slender or weakens the paint for appliance and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.

Pahari Painting

The truthful significance of Pahari painting is a painting from the mountainous regions. The term pahar stands for the word mountain in Hindi. Pahari painting is an umbrella term used for a type of Indian painting. This unique type of painting begins from the Himalayan Hill kingdoms of North India, during 17th-19th century. Remarkably Basohli, Mankot, Nurpur, Chamba, Kangra, Gulley, Mandi, and Garhwal were done mostly in tiny forms.

Initially the Pahari School was urbanized and flourishes during 17th-19th centuries. It extends from Jammu to Almora and Garhwal, in the sub-Himalayan India, via Himachal Pradesh.Each creates stark variations within the type, varying from bold intense Basohli Painting that originates from Basohli in Jammu and Kashmir, to the delicate and lyrical Kangra paintings. This style was identical to the style before other schools of paintings developed, that reached its peak with paintings of Radha and Krishna, inspired by Jayadev's Gita Govinda.

This unique kind gave birth to a new language in Indian painting, and grew out of the Mughal painting, though this was supported mostly by the Raj put kings who ruled numerous parts of the county.