India has tradition of folk art from ancient. Warli art is most popular tribal art mostly done by Adivasi from North Sahyadri Range in India (Dahanu, Talasari, Jawhar, Palghar, Mokhada, and Vikramgadh). In the book The Painted World of the Warlis Yashodhara Dalmia claimed that the Warlis carry on a tradition stretching back to 2500 or 3000 BCE. Their mural paintings are similar to those done between 500 and 10,000 BCE in the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, in Madhya Pradesh.

These paintings use a very basic graphic vocabulary: a circle, a triangle and a square. The circle and triangle come from their observation of nature, the circle representing the sun and the moon, the triangle derived from mountains and pointed trees. Only the square seems to obey a different logic and seems to be a human invention, indicating a sacred enclosure or a piece of land. In ritual type of warli paintings, the central motive is the square, known as the "chauk" or "chaukat". It is surrounded by scenes portraying hunting, fishing and farming, festivals and dances, trees and animals. Apart from ritualistic paintings, other warli paintings covered day-to-day activities of the village folks. Simple warli painting has huts, domestic animals, trees etc. One of the central striking aspect of many warli painting is the "Tarpa dance"- the tarpa, a trumpet like instrument, is played in turns by different men. Men and women entwine their hands and move in a circle around the tarpa player. The dancers follow the tarpa player, turning and moving as he turns, never turning their back to the tarpa. The circle formation of the dancers is also said to be a resemble the circle of life.

The Warli use only white for their red ochre background area. Their white pigment is a mixture of rice paste and water with gum as a binding. They use a bamboo stick chewed at the end to make it as supple as a paintbrush.