Looking at Fedoskino boxes everyone can find them very different from Palekh, Mstyora and Kholui. From the very beginning they followed in Fedoskino the style of realistic painting and in other three artists still use a lot of iconography elements. But the technology of the boxes making is exactly the same everywhere. Here we show how they make boxes in Palekh but the first and the final steps are similar in all four places. There is only one difference how to paint the picture.

1. FEDOSKINO
In this village and only there artists work with oil paints. They start with additional layer of background that is Aluminium powder for backgroundmade of aluminum powder. Later it will protect the lacquer from absorption by papier-mache and also it is used very often for the shining effect when artists use transparent oil paints. But not only aluminum is used for it. Very often Fedoskino artists make underlayers of gold and silver foil or inlay pieces of mother-of pearl. Again this is unique technique of this very village (it is necessary to say that in other three for icons and religious scenes artists also often make underlayers of gold foil).
Everywhere the picture has many layers of painting but in Fedoskino is much deeper than in other places. In this village artists separate the painting layers with lacquer layers. Usually there are not less than three of Bronze powder that people in Fedoskino use instead of golden paint for ornaments.painting layers but if the box is big or for mistake correction they can make more. Artist starts with biggest details of the picture and it will be the first layer of painting. It is covered with two or three layers of lacquer then the second layer takes place. It is more detailed than the first one but it is possible to see that the picture is not complete. They cover it again with lacquer and over paint the third. Usually the most delicate picture details take place on it. After this artist signs the box, protects the picture with lacquer and passes it to another person for final lacquering and polishing.
From the very beginning the painting in Fedoskino was realistic. Everything on the boxes looked like in the real life. Since 1956 they started to use tales like the subjects for paintings. Inlayed pieces of mother-of-pearl with additional layer of background, made of alumunium powderThe boxes became much brighter, the composition and colours sometimes look not realistic but any way the figures of the people have natural proportions. Young artists also sometimes make boxes very different form traditional direction searching for their own way in the art.
The decoration on the sides also can be done in the very different way. They usually make traditional ornamentation not with gold, like in other villages, but with bronze paint. Sometimes it is possible to see imitation of stones (malachite, snakestone, jasper etc.), turtle shell, birch-tree, and Scottish tartan. Such unique technique like "scan" is also very interesting. This is application of small pieces of gold or silver foil, which have different shape. Artist cut them off from the leaf of foil using needles with the different end shapes and stick to the box one by one in ornamental pattern using lacquer. Very often they combine these techniques together, for example "scan" and stone imitation.

2. PALEKH, MSTYORA and KHOULI
Palekhians as well as Mstyora and Kholui artists follow in their art the traditions of icon painting. For their art they use not oil paints, like in Fedoskino, but egg tempera paints - traditional icon paints. If it is possible to make approximate scale of realistic-unrealistic painting, Palekh will take place on one of the poles (unrealistic) and Fedoskino - on another (realistic). All-over the world people recognize Palekh boxes by their black background (this is the most traditional colour but it is necessary to remember that sometimes they use another colours for it from white to red, blue and green). It is easier to say that Palekh boxes do not have sky, only sun, moon or clouds. But this is only one of traditional features of the Palekh style. For iconography it is traditional to paint people with very long bodies and in Palekh they are longer then in Mstyora or Kholui. The ground is painted like the high hills with many picks and these hills very often look like stairway. The water has waves like it is sea or ocean. The wind is shown by the waves of people's costumes. Sometimes the people on Palekh boxes have dark skin. The trees as in summer pictures as well as in winter look like palm-trees. It happens because icons illustrate the Bible and all events there took places in Israel where one can find such landscape, sea, palm-trees and dark-skin people. After 1917 icon style found the second life in boxes painting without any changes. The composition in these villages is also can be done in very unusual way: on one landscape they can paint many scenes of one tale. Like the best sample of such composition we can take the box by Vladimir Sedov from Kholui. On the box 5 by 4 inches he painted all famous buildings of St.-Petersburg including Admiralty, Winter Palace, St. Isaac's Cathedral and St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress. The real distance between them is few kilometers and it is impossible for Fedoskino artists to combine all of them on one box following realistic style.
Another interesting feature of Palekh is highlighting the picture with gold paint. When the picture in tempera is complete, Palekh artists cover it with lacquer and highlight with gold paint leafs of the trees, hairs and costumes of the people. In other villages some of the artists (like Trondina or Moshkovich in Mstyora) try to use the same technique but not often and everyone can see the difference. For the winter scenes or water highlighting palekhians make aluminum paint using the same method like for gold paint. The same paints and only them, never bronze, they use for ornamentation.
It is necessary to note that for tempera artists also make background. Tempera paints are very transparent and to pay right over the black means to loose its colours. For background they use white zinc paints and in Palekh, where they do not make coloured background, they have to paint the whole picture in white at first.
In Mstyora they use coloured background. The picture has the sky and for them it is enough to make only white spot for background. If in Palekh usually we meet clear colours, like clear red, clear green or blue, in Mstyora they prefer to use soft and pastel colours, like light blue, light green, yellow or pink. The figures of the people are not so long, like in Palekh, the hills are not so high and the trees look more realistic. The gold paint is used usually only for the ornament. In Mstyora they like to surround the picture with thin golden line and the picture usually looks inside the black and gold ornamental frame.
Among the icon style villages Kholui is the most realistic. First Kholui boxes look like Mstyora and it is easy to explain it: at first Kholui factory was the filial of Mstyora one. Only after the 50th they created there something different. Modern boxes from Kholui sometimes have a lot of black space like in Palekh or with coloured background like in Mstyora. In the last way they do not make the exact frame around the picture but close the black with trees, clouds, etc. Everything looks more realistic on Kholui boxes than in Mstyora or Palekh but not so realistic like in Fedoskino. The colours are not so clear like in Palekh, in Kholui they prefer to mix them into grey-green, green-blue, etc. But they are brighter than in Mstyora.

Palekh lacquered miniatures are painted on articles - cases, chests, plates, brooches - made of papier-mache. The process of making Palekh articles is the following:

The first operation in the making of these gems of folk art is the cutting out of the cardboard.
The strips of cardboard are covered with flour paste,
placed on circular or rectangular moulds...
...and pressed.
Then the material is given a coating of warm linseed oil.
Each piece of material is sufficient for four articles. It is then cut into pieces.
The carefully checked pieces are handed to the joiners. One of the first stages in the making of brooches is turning.
A powder-box is "finished" on a lathe.
A future chest is first planed...
...then sandpapered...
...and, finally, "finished" with an emery brush.
But the joiner's work is not yet done, for to make miniature joints, hinge-plates and locks insert them so that they are barely visible...
...and attach them carefully to an article made of such difficult a material to process as papier-mache...
...you must be an experienced joiner proficient at working with metal as well.
These traditional tools are used by the Palekh masters to prepare primings and undercoats.
This undercoat of clay, oil and soot is passed through a paint sieve.
The undercoat is applied to the article with a steel palette knife.
It is then smoothed with pumice-stone, the remains of which are brushed off with a goose quill.
The outside of Palekh articles is painted with black lacquer.
The inside is painted with red lacquer.
The final operation before painting: about seven coats of transparent oil varnish is applied to the outside and inside of the article.
Every coat applied is dried in the furnace for 9 hours at 90°C.

The articles are now ready to be handed to the artists. The work of the artist begins with preparation of the paint.

In Palekh the paints are mixed with egg emulsion. The yolk, separated from the white, is returned to the shell where a mixture of water and vinegar is added.
Then the emulsion is stirred with a special brush..
The egg emulsion is added to the dry pigment and the artist mixes all this with his finger.
Before painting the article, the artist draws on the design.
Then the composition is outlined in white lead with a very fine squirrel brush (the artists make the brushes themselves as well)...
...and the colours are then applied in strict succession.
The work of the miniature painter requires not only creative inspiration, but also extreme care and precision which is why Palekh painters frequently make use of a magnifying glass.
When the painting is over, the artist begins the gold work. Gold leaf is carefully crushed and then ground by hand.
The gold must be polished to give it the necessary shine. This is done with a wolf's tooth, which has a remarkably smooth surface.
After having signed the article the artist coats it by transparent oil varnish.
The article is rubbed by a mechanical polisher covered with plush or velvet...
...but the "finishing touch" is always a polish by hand.

Palekh miniatures are signed on the same pattern. On the cover of a thing there is an ordinal number of a half-finished product, a mark of copyright (C), the place of production (Palekh), date (year), author's autograph. Since 1934 there was put a sign "Made in USSR" outside the bottom of the box, which has been changed into "Made in Russia" since 1992. Everything is done in gold.
At the end of the 80th there appeared a trade mark as a "fire-bird" on the Palekh and Co works. The Union of Palekh masters had its own trade mark as a "feather of fire-bird" from 1989 till 1991. But in 1991 it became a "fire-bird" as well. Every organization joins the certificate of work authenticity to the work itself.

3. PALEKH ARTISTS WORK PLACE
Palekh artist needs a special table. The table roof must be strictly horizontal for paint not to pour out from the subject painted. In the table-roof there must be a special rectangular opening (40x30 sm.) for the work with high subjects. Case or casket must be in on the same level as table-roof. For painting the sides the case is put on a special plywood comb with the help of which it is balanced in the opening. The table must have an open drawer for keeping things in work, different materials and tools. Every artist has a special case for keeping tools, materials, brushes, pencils and others. It's size is 35x22x8 sm. For painting sketches the master needs pencils, elastic, compasses, ruler, small knife and set square. For painting they need a sharp squirrel brush. For drawing the sketch on the surface of the thing they use tzirovka (needle in the wooden hand).

Palekh masters use 6 kinds of brushes:
1) The largest one is thinner than a pencil and it is the bluntest. They put colour on the largest places of the thing painted (roskrysh).
2) The brush of the middle size and middle bluntness. It is used for putting colours on the smaller places of the thing painted.
3) The next brush is thin and sharp. It is used for detailed painting (dress, head and so on).
4) The brush of middle size, middle sharpness and special thinness. It is used for painting heads and naked parts of the body.
5) A very sharp brush is used for painting with gold.
6)A brush like the fifth one is used for painting with aluminium.

The brushes number 5 and 6 are never washed. They are dried and kept carefully from work to work. For spike of the dried brush not to spoil they are put some tubes from duck feather.

Other instruments used by painters:
1) a wooden shovel (or metal halo) for mixing egg emulsion;
2) a phial for keeping egg emulsion;
3) a glass for washing brushes during the work;
4) a pot (usually of plastic) for keeping dry colours, elastic and pumice;
5) a cup for preparing colours for work;
6) three small porcelain saucers: for making up colours, for gold mill, for aluminium mill;
7) wolf tooth for polishing gold and aluminium;
8) round end scraper for cleaning the cups of dried colours;
9) some flannel for wiping hands and brushes;
10) goose feather for dusting the thing painted;
11) a small bench (size 30x6x4 sm.) for hands (podruchnik) not to put on the thing;
12)magnifying glass.

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