Indian Minatures

‘Indian miniature paintings are a great inspiration to me, not only for their exquisite detail, but also for the rich colours they often employ. The technique for both Western icon and Indian miniature painting technique is similar: both styles use gouache or tempera rather than oil-based paints. Oil paints are slow-drying and can be blended and re-blended. Gouache is fast drying and does not allow much blending; instead flat areas of pigment are applied, and blending of colour, and gradations of tone, are built up using fine hatching brushstrokes. The advantage over oil painting is a greater purity of colour. There is an emphasis on line rather than tone, on two dimensional design over perspective effects.’

Graham Brown