Dr. Christopher Brown (R), the Director of the Ashmolean, talks with Colin Harrison, the Ashmolean's Senior Curator of European Art, in front of a painting by Edouard Manet entitled “Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus” from 1868 in the Ashmolean Museum on February 24, 2012 in Oxford, England. The painting has been sold to a foreign buyer for 28.35 million GBP, however the Government has extended a temporary export bar on the artwork until August to give the Ashmolean an opportunity to raise funds to retain the painting in the UK. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Love and joy in paintings by Yuri Matsika

Inga Paltser is a young painter from Severodvinsk known for her watercolor illustrations and paintings of owls. Inga prefers working with paper, but sometimes also creates on textile, wood, and canvas. She started painting in her childhood at the local school of arts. However, after high school Inga decided to become a biologist and now she works as a researcher. Even though art hasn’t become her profession, Inga finds time to create wonderful paintings presented on this website. Her first owls were painted spontaneously – Inga decided to utilize small pieces of watercolor and pastel paper and created two cute owls called “Friends”. Inga’s owls instantly received recognition across the web and social networks and now are greatly loved by thousands of people around the world.

People watch participants, whose faces are painted as popular Mexican figure “Catrina”, during the annual Catrina Fest, part of Day of the Dead celebrations, in Mexico City, Mexico, November 2, 2016. (Photo by Edgard Garrido/Reuters)

A Sudanese girl with half painted face watches as protesters demonstrate outside the defense ministry compound in Khartoum, Sudan, April 25, 2019. (Photo by Umit Bektas/Reuters)

A worker paints the face of a realistic pet plushie, at the Pampanga Teddy Bear Factory, in Angeles City, Pampanga province, Philippines on March 10, 2023. (Photo by Lisa Marie David/Reuters)