In India , art does not wait for a canvas. Rock faces, caves, the wall or floor, a palm even, or even a palm … all function as a canvas for expression. Vibrant dyes extracted from natural sources (flowers, leaves, berries, wood, even soot) are used for colours, and implements include thin sticks stripped from long grasses and brushes made of bird's feathers, squirrel hair and bamboo.

Folk art, in particular, is an unabashed paean to color, inevitably linked to the forgotten art of story telling. Folk art traditions include:

Kalamkari (literally “pen work”) from Andhra Pradesh – Painting with a pen made from a bamboo sliver wound at one end with wool and dyed with a natural black ink made from jaggery, rusted iron filings and water. Subjects include the epics, trees, fruits, flowers, birds.

Warli from Maharashtra – Paintings of triangular white figures with stick-like hands and legs, engaged in carrying grain, dancing, traveling to market, or tending to domestic chores. Done in white rice paste on the cowdung and mud plastered walls of huts, their new

Patachitra from West Bengal and (especially) Orissa – Etchings done in strips on palm-leaf, paper or silk, depicting stories from poems or the epics (each strip is one incident). As the artists unroll the paintings, they sing, entertaining the villagers.

Mithila from Bihar – Painted on the walls of homes, they evolved out of the religious, social and natural themes that affected people. Mithila paintings now available on cloth scrolls or on thick paper.

Thanjavoor glass painting – Which depicts mythological subjects in bright colors and remarkable gold leaf work.

The temple and monastery paintings in Tamil Nadu and Andhra as well as the murals at the Padmanabhapuram Palace in Kerala reflect their regional skills. The Rathva tribals of Gujarat and the Bhilala tribals of Madhya Pradesh