Types
of Original Painting
Acrylic - Thicker
and stronger than gouache and watercolor
paint, Acrylic is a water-based "plastic" paint.
A type of paint made with synthetic resin
as the medium (liquid) to bind the pigment
(color), rather than natural oils such
as linseed used in oil paints. It has
the advantage of drying faster than oils
and being water-soluble.
It
is a fast-drying paint containing
pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion.
Acrylic paints can be diluted with water,
but become water-resistant when dry.
Depending on how much the paint is diluted
(with water), the finished acrylic painting
can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting.
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Acrylics
were first available commercially in
the 1940s, although experimental forms
of acrylic resin paints had been developed
as early as the 1920s in the U.S. and
earlier in Germany. The first commercially
available acrylic paints were actually
oil compatible.
Acrylics
are sometimes used in place of watercolors
because acrylics dry closer to the desired
color (slightly darker, usually) while
watercolors dry lighter (and often unpredictably,
especially for beginning artists).
Acrylics
are often used as an alternative to oil paints because acrylics dry much faster (usually within
an hour or even as little as less than
a minute, depending on brand and thickness
of application). Oil paints, which consist
of pigment suspended in an oil (usually linseed,
or other natural oil) base, can take
a very long time to dry: a few weeks
or as long as several months. Acrylic
paints can achieve an oil-paint-like
effect, and do so in much less time.
Though applied to look like oil paints,
acrylics are somewhat limited due to
the superior color range of oil paints,
and the fact that acrylic paints dry
to a shiny, smooth (some say 'cartoonish')
effect—not surprising since acrylic
paints are, basically, plastic. Accordingly,
acrylic paint cannot be removed with turpentine,
mineral spirits (also known as white
spirits), ammonia, or rubbing
alcohol.
Acrylic
painters modify the appearance, hardness,
flexibility, texture, and other characteristics
of the paint surface using acrylic mediums.
Watercolor and oil painters also use
mediums, but the range of acrylic mediums
is much greater. Acrylics have the ability
to bond to many different surfaces, and
mediums can be used to adjust their binding
characteristics. Mediums can change the
sheen from gloss to matte, or can add
iridescence or texture to the surface.
They can also be used to build thick
layers of paint: gel and molding paste
mediums are sometimes used to create
paintings with relief features that are
literally sculptural.
Acrylic
paints are the most commonly used in grattage (q.v.).
Acrylic
paintings, ideally, should be treated
as if they're as different from oil paintings
as are watercolors: they are their own
artform. There are techniques which are
available only to acrylic painters, as
well as restrictions unique to acrylic
painting. Therefore, judging an acrylic
painting as though it were an oil painting
(or a watercolor) is not always appropriate.
Although
the permanency of acrylics is sometimes
debated by conservators, they appear
more stable than oil paints. Whereas
oil paints normally turn yellow as they
age/dry, acrylic paints, at least in
the 50 years since invention, do not
yellow, crack, or change.
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Charcoal - is
the blackish residue consisting of impure carbon obtained by
removing water and other volatile constituents
of animal and vegetable substances? It
is usually produced by heating wood in the absence of oxygen (see char), but sugar charcoal, bone
charcoal (which contains a great
amount of calcium phosphate),
and others can be produced as well. The
light, black, porous material is 85%
to 98% carbon, the remainder consisting
of volatile chemicals and ash, and resembles coal.
The
first part of the word is of obscure
origin. The independent use of "char",
meaning to scorch, to reduce to carbon,
is comparatively recent and must be a back-formation from
the earlier charcoal. It may be a use
of the word charren, meaning to turn, i.e., wood changed or turned
to coal; or it may be from the French charbon. A person who manufactured charcoal was formerly
known as a collier, though
the term was used later for those who
dealt in coal.
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Conté Crayon - Conté Crayon, also known as Conté sticks or
crayons, are a drawing medium composed
of compressed
powdered graphite or charcoal mixed with
a wax or clay base, square in cross-section.
They were invented in 1795 by Nicolas
Jacques Conté, who created the combination
of clay and graphite in response to the
shortage of graphite caused by the Napoleonic
Wars. Conté crayons had the advantage
of being cost-effective to produce, and
easy to manufacture in controlled grades
of hardness. They are now more commonly
made of a variety of fabricated chalk.
(http://www.nyu.edu/classes/miller/guide/contcr.html)
Conté is
most commonly found in black, white,
and sepia tones and is frequently used
on rough paper that holds pigment grains
well. It can also be used on prepared
primed canvases for underdrawing for
a painting. The sticks' square profile
makes Conté more suitable for
detailed hatched work as opposed to the
bolder
'painterly' drawing style demanded by
soft pastels.
They
were extensively used by the Renaissance Old Masters in
a variant called Sanguine, which has become the name of the reddest sepia tone
of Conté.
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Crayon - A crayon is a stick
of colored wax, charcoal, chalk, or other material used for writing and drawing. A crayon
made of oiled chalk is called an oil pastel;
when made of pigment with
a dry binder, it is simply a pastel.
Wax
crayons are commonly used for drawing
and coloring by children, although adult
artists have occasionally (though not
commonly, for one reason because of the
difficulty in mixing colours) produced
works in crayon. Many schools across
the globe have crayons for the children.
They are relatively easy to work with,
blunt (removing any risk from sharp points),
non-toxic, and available in a wide variety
of colors. The world's largest manufacturer
of wax crayons is Binney & Smith Inc., the manufacturer
of Crayola® brand
crayons.
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Collage - introduced by the Cubists, the technique of creating a work of art
by adhering flat articles such as paper,
fabrics, string or other materials to
a flat surface such as a canvas whereby
a three-dimensional result is achieved.
Cubist painter, Pablo
Picasso, invented the collage technique
in 1912 with his Still Life with
Chair Caning (Nature-morte á la chaise
cannée)[1], in which
he pasted a patch of oilcloth with a chair-caning Inimage is a name given
by René Passerson to
what is usually considered a style
of surrealist collage (though it perhaps
qualifies instead as a decollage) in which parts are cut away from an existing image
to reveal another image.
Collages
produced using a similar, or perhaps
identical, method are called etrécissements by Richard
Genovese from a method first explored
by Marcel
Mariën. Genovese also introduced excavation collage (that includes elements of decollage) which
is the layering of printed images, loosely
affixed at the corners and then tearing
away bits of the upper layer to reveal
images from underneath, thereby introducing
a new collage of images. Penelope
Rosemont invented some methods of
surrealist collage, the prehensilhouette and the landscapade.
Collage
was often called the art form of the 20th century, but this was never fully realised.
Surrealist
games such as parallel collage use collective techniques of collage making.
Collage
made from photographs, or parts of photographs,
is called photomontage.
Decoupage is
a type of collage usually defined as
a craft. It is the process
of placing a picture onto an object
for decoration. Often decoupage causes
the
picture to appear to have depth and
looks as though it had been painted
on the
object.
The
process is to glue (or otherwise affix)
a picture to an object, then adding more
copies of the picture on top, progressively
cutting out more and more of the background,
giving the illusion of depth in the picture.
The picture is often coated with varnish
or some other sealant for protection.design
to the canvass of the piece.
Surrealist artists
have made extensive use of collage. Cubomania is a collage made by cutting an image
into squares which are then reassembled automatically or at random.
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Egg
Tempera -Tempera
(or egg tempera) is the primary type of
artist's paint and
associated art techniques that were
prevalent in Europe's Middle Ages.
Tempera was typically created by hand-grinding
dry powdered pigments into egg
yolk (which was the primary binding
agent or "medium"), sometimes
along with other materials such as honey, water, milk (in the form
of casein)
and a variety of plant gums. When oil
paint was invented in the late Middle
Ages, tempera continued to be used
for a while as the underpainting (base
layer) with translucent or transparent
oil glazes on top. This transitional,
mixed technique was followed by a pure oil
painting technique, which mostly
replaced tempera in the 16th
century.
Tempera
paint dries rapidly. The techniques of
tempera painting can be exacting when
used with traditional techniques that
require the application of numerous small
brushstrokes applied in a cross-hatching
technique. The colors, which are painted
over each other, resemble a pastel when
unvarnished, or the deeper colors when
varnished.
Tempera
is normally applied in thin semi-opaque
or transparent layers. When dry, it will
produce a smooth matte finish. Because
it can't be applied in thick layers as
oil paints can, tempera paintings rarely
have the deep color saturation that oil
paintings can achieve.
True
tempera paintings are quite permanent.
However, the term "tempera" in
modern times has also been used by some
manufacturers to refer to ordinary poster
paint, which is a cheap form of gouache
(opaque watercolor) that has nothing
to do with real egg tempera.
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Gouache - the technique or product where heavy,
opaque watercolor is applied to paper
and produces a more brilliant and strong-colored
result than usual watercolors.
It
(from the Italian guazzo, "water
paint, splash") is a type of watercolor paint, made heavier and more opaque
by the addition of a white pigment (chalk, Chinese white, etc.)
in a gum
arabic mixture. This results in a
stronger color than ordinary watercolor.
Many forms of 'poster paint' are actually
gouache, as are some products labeled
as tempera.
The
term was originally coined in the eighteenth
century in France, although
the technique is considerably older,
having been in use as early as the 14th
century in illustrated manuscripts (country
of orgin unknown)Europe.
The
pigment dries slightly lighter than it
appears when wet, which can make it difficult
to match colors. The medium can also
be susceptible to cracking if applied
too thickly; this problem can be alleviated
to some degree by the use of thickening
media such as aquapasto.
It can be very effective when applied
to colored paper, for example in works
by J.M.W.
Turner.
Today
the term gouache can be used interchangeably
with body color, although the latter
is made in a slightly different way.
It can also be used as a term for any
painting produced entirely with gouache.
Gouache
was the original, and is still the primary,
paint used in the production of decalcomanias.
Gouache
was used in most 20th Century animations
to create an opaque color on a cell with watercolor paint
used for backgrounds.
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Mosaic -
a very old decorative art, the art technique
of setting small pieces (tesserae)
of tile, glass, stone in a base of plaster
or concrete. Often very intricate and
detailed, mosaic is usually used on walls,
ceilings and floors.
It
is the art of decoration with
small pieces of colored glass, stone
or other material. It may be a technique
of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration or of cultural significance
as in a cathedral.
Small tiles or
fragments of pottery (known as tesserae,
diminutive tessellae) or of
colored glass or clear glass backed
with metal foils, are used to create
a pattern or picture.
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Oil
painting - developed over time during the 15th
and 16th centuries, the technique or
result of using paints made from pigments
mixed with oil on a canvas. Oil paint
allowed for more demanding uses than
the drier, less useful egg tempera
type of paint.
Slow
drying paint made when pigments are mixed
with an oil, linseed oil being most traditional.
The oil dries with a hard film, and the
brightness of the colors is protected.
Oil paints are usually opaque and traditionally
used on canvas.
"Oils
are one of the great classic media, and
have dominated painting for five hundred
years. They remain popular for many reasons:
their great versatility, offering the
possibility of transparency and opacity
in the same painting; the lack of color
change when the painting dries; and ease
of manipulation."
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Pastel -
a crayon made from pigment mixed with
gum and water and pressed into a stick-shaped
form. A work of art created from these
crayons is also called a pastel. Pastel
can also indicate a pale color. 1. A typically soft, colored crayon made of pigments
mixed with just enough water-based binder
to hold its form. Pastel crayons are
available in the full gamut of hues including deep colors;
they are not restricted to pastel shades.
2. The technique of painting with pastel crayons. Pastel is the simplest
and purest method of painting because the pigments are applied directly to
the paper without liquid. Pastels are classified as paintings rather than
drawings because the pigments are applied in broad strokes and areas of color
rather than in sharply defined lines (although some artists will use harder,
pointed pastel crayons to create a work similar to that of a drawing). Once
the pigments are applied, the artist may blend them by rubbing.
3. A work of art produced with pastel crayons.
Definition
of Pastel Paints & Pastel Paintings:
Ground pigment mixed with chalk and gum
or oil, then shaped into drawing sticks.
Pastels cannot be mixed on a palette
like paints, but are mixed on the paper
by overlaying or blending. Conté crayons
are a square type of pastel. Colours
go from soft to brilliant in a stick
form. When the paper is covered completely,
it is known as a pastel painting. When
the paper is exposed through the pastel,
it is known as a pastel sketch.
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Pen
and Ink - refers to a technique of drawing or writing, in which colored (this includes
black) ink is applied to paper using a pen or other stylus. It may be
used as a medium for sketches, or for finished works of art. Pen and
ink also lends itself to fine writing
and calligraphy.
Pens - Different types of
pens produce distinctive types of lines.
Some, such as the crow-quill dip pen, produce
slender and delicate lines. Other pens
have a broader nib which can produce both
thick and thin lines.
Most fountain
pens and ballpoint pens are often regarded by many artists as
being insensitive instruments or even
not for true pen and ink work, but
they are often useful for sketching
in conditions in which a pot of ink
would be a spill hazard.
Many
technical artists prefer the Rotring Rapidograph or Isograph series of technical pens, which produce lines
of extremely regular width and which
contain their own ink. Originally the
pens were used mostly for architectural illustration
of new buildings, although this has now
mostly been replaced by computer rendered
visualisations. Since being popularised
by Robert
Crumb in the mid 1970s,
Rapidographs have been the standard pens
used by most comic book and graphic
novel artists.
Ink - Iron-gall
nut ink was the usual type of ink
used in the West. In the 20th century
waterproof Indian
ink has replaced previously used
inks, although this tradition does
not preclude an artist using other
types of mark-making materials. The
paper used must be strong enough to
resist the wear from a steel pen nib,
and to absorb all the ink applied.
Many
pre-modern cultures
around the world developed the comparatively
cheap and portable medium of pen and
ink art to a high level of sophistication,
notably the Chinese and Japanese. In late imperial
China (1644-1912), of all the arts,
pen and ink calligraphy was the most
respected.
Pen
and ink calligraphy was
raised to a high level in Arabic writing,
since Islam forbids
the representation of living beings.
In some forms of Arabic calligraphy,
the letters were delicately formed to
suggest an image related to the meaning
of the phrase being written, without
being an actual image of a living being.
There was a strong parallel tradition
at the same time among Aramaic and Hebrew scholars,
seen in such works as the Hebrew illuminated bibles of the 9th and
10th Centuries. For more information
on Arabic and Hebrew medieval calligraphy
see: Calligraphy.
In
Western art, pen and ink artwork can
be traced back to the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Winchester
and Canterbury manuscripts of the 9th century,
characteristic of which are lively precise
figures and animals amid decorative foliage
and fine calligraphy.
In
the Georgian and
early Victorian periods in England, pen and
ink was mostly used for quick sketches,
often with a high degree of abstraction. George Romney produced a number of notable
ink sketches of Emma Hamilton which are noted for the economy of his
strokes, in which he produced instantly
recognizable figures with a dozen lines.
Later English artists developed the pen
and ink drawing into a finished artform,
probably the finest examples of which
are the 1825 series of visionary
landscape drawings by Samuel
Palmer.
Like
many of the arts which it is possible
to practice with just a minimum of tools
and materials, the status of pen and
ink work is now very low in the contemporary
art world, and it also suffers because drawing is not now generally taught in art schools. This state
of affairs has not been helped by the
advent of software rendering - it is
now possible for software such as Photoshop, Poser, Painter and
Piranisi to automatically take a photographic
image and render it into an approximation
of a "pen and ink" style, albeit
one lacking the vital "human touch".
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Pencil
Drawing -
Pencil sketching is drawing with a pencil. It can refer
to the general technique of drawing,
or a method of reproducing photos.
For the latter, the negative image
of a photograph is
placed in a photographic enlarger in
a dark room. The image is projected
on to the paper where the sketch is
to be done. All the light shades are
penciled until the paper is all the
same shade.
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Pointillist - Pointillism is a form of painting in which tiny
dots of primary colors are used to generate
secondary colors. It is an offshoot of Impressionism,
and is usually categorized as a form
of Post-Impressionism.
It is very similar to Divisionism, except
that where Divisionism is concerned with
color theory; Pointillism is more focused
on the specific style of brushwork used
to apply the paint.
The term "Pointillism" was
first used with respect to the work of Georges Seurat,
and he is the artist most closely associated with the movement. The relatively
few artists who worked in this style also included Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond
Cross
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Portrait - a representation of a person or group
or animal on a two-dimensional medium
that typically also shows some aspect
symbolic of the subject.
It
is a painting, photograph,
or other artistic representation of a
person. Portraits are often simple head
shots or mug
shots and
are not usually overly elaborate. The
intent is to show the basic appearance
of the person, and occasionally some
artistic insight into his or her personality.
The
art of the portrait flourished in Roman
sculptures, where sitters demanded realistic
portraits, even unflattering ones. During
the 4th century,
the portrait began to retreat in favor
of an idealized symbol of what that person
looked like. (Compare the portraits of
Roman Emperors Constantine I and Theodosius
I at their entries.) In Europe true
portraits of the outward appearance of
individuals re-emerged in the late Middle
Ages, in Burgundy and France.
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Watercolors - a paint that uses water as its base
usually painted on heavy paper.
Definition
of Water Color: Watercolor is named for
its primary component. It consists of
a pigment dissolved in water and bound
by a colloid agent (usually a gum, such
as gum Arabic); it is applied with a
brush onto a supporting surface mainly
dampened paper. The resulting mark (after
the water has evaporated) is transparent,
allowing light to reflect from the supporting
surface, to luminous effect. Watercolor
is often combined with gouache (or "body
color"), an opaque water-based paint
containing a white element derived from
chalk, lead, or zinc oxide.
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