The heroes and demons depicted are taken from the Ramayana, Suthasoma, Pan Brayut, and other Javanese and Bali-Hindu mythologies and literary classics. These characters are not really individuals but distinct, iconographic types. The village was once a lively center court for 'dalang', dancers, and musicians, all serving as inspiration for local painters. It used to be paintings that depicted themes or characters that did not correspond to the accepted, cherished age-old values of the community risked severe criticism, but Kamasan's new patrons want painters to produce work with lighter themes. Kamasan painters also specialize in pictorial Balinese calendars.
Kamasan paintings are actually colored drawings.
Traditionally, rocks, leaves, soot, crushed limestone, bone, and other vegetable and mineral dyes produced yellow, blue, red, green, orange, caramel, dark ochre, and dark brown colors. Now poster paints are beginning to replace hand-pounded natural dyes. Cotton cloth is stretched, a layer of white rice flour starch applied, scenarios sketched from memory with charcoal, outlines drawn in with China ink, and the pigments filled in with a homemade, very fine bamboo paintbrush. Figures are usually colored orange. In the best pieces, look for figure set off by fluid and distinct black outlines.