TECHNIQUES

It's always instructive to see an ancient painting in progress, and unfinished. This one's by the famous Behzad (c. 1480) and depicts a poet being attacked by dogs. We learn that miniatures were built up in different areas at the same time - something I always try to encourage in my teaching - and you can see areas that are already rendered to a high detail and others that are hardly touched. This is the way artists worked (at least I do too).