OIL ART / OIL PAINTING

WHAT IS OIL ART?

Oil art is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. Commonly
used drying oils include linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, and safflower oil. The choice of oil
imparts a range of properties to the oil paint, such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. Certain
differences, depending on the oil, are also visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use
several different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The
paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium. The oil may be
boiled with aresin, such as pine resin or frankincense, to create a varnish prized for its body and
gloss.
Although oil paint was first used for Buddhist paintings by Indian and Chinese painters in
western Afghanistan sometime between the fifth and tenth centuries,[1] it did not gain popularity until
the 15th century. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages. Oil paint
eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became
widely known. The transition began with Early Netherlandish painting in Northern Europe, and by the
height of the Renaissance oil painting techniques had almost completely replaced the use
of tempera paints in the majority of Europe.
In recent years, water miscible oil paint has come to prominence and, to some extent, replaced
traditional oil paint. Water-soluble paints contain an emulsifier that allows them to be thinned with
water rather than paint thinner, and allows very fast drying times (13 days) when compared with
traditional oils (13 weeks).

HOW TO DO OIL ART

Oil paint is made by mixing pigments of colors with an oil medium. Different colors are made, or
purchased premixed, before painting begins, but further shades of color are usually obtained by
mixing small quantities together as the painting process is underway. An artist's palette, traditionally
a thin wood board held in the hand, is used for holding and mixing paints of different colors.
Pigments may be any number of natural or synthetic substances with color, such as sulphur for
yellow or cobalt for blue. Traditional pigments were based on minerals or plants, but many have
proven unstable over long periods of time; the appearance of many old paintings today is very

different from the original. Modern pigments often use synthetic chemicals. The pigment is mixed
with oil, usually linseed, but other oils may be used. The various oils dry differently, which creates
assorted effects.
Traditionally, artists mixed their own paints from raw pigments that they often ground themselves
and medium. This made portability difficult and kept most painting activities confined to the studio.
This changed in the 1800s, when tubes of oil paint became widely available following the American
portrait painter John Goffe Rand's invention of the squeezable or collapsible metal tube in 1841 (the
year of Claude Monet's birth). Artists could mix colors quickly and easily, which enabled, for the first
time, relatively convenientplein air painting (a common approach in French Impressionism).
A brush is most commonly employed by the artist to apply the paint, often over a sketched outline of
their subject (which could be in another medium). Brushes are made from a variety of fibers to
create different effects. For example, brushes made with hog bristle might be used for bolder strokes
and impasto textures. Fitch hair and mongoose hair brushes are fine and smooth, and thus answer
well for portraits and detail work. Even more expensive are red sable brushes (weasel hair). The
finest quality brushes are called "kolinsky sable"; these brush fibers are taken from the tail of
the Siberian weasel. This hair keeps a superfine point, has smooth handling, and good memory (it
returns to its original point when lifted off the canvas), known to artists as a brush's "snap." Floppy
fibers with no snap, such as squirrel hair, are generally not used by oil painters.
In the past few decades, many synthetic brushes have been marketed. These are very durable and
can be quite good, as well ascost efficient. Brushes come in many sizes and are used for different
purposes. The type of brush also makes a difference. For example, a "round" is a pointed brush
used for detail work. "Flat" brushes are used to apply broad swaths of color. "Bright" is a flat brush
with shorter brush hairs. "Filbert" is a flat brush with rounded corners. "Egbert" is a very long, and
rare, filbert brush. The artist might also apply paint with a palette knife, which is a flat metal blade. A
palette knife may also be used to remove paint from the canvas when necessary. A variety of
unconventional tools, such as rags, sponges, and cotton swabs, may be used to apply or remove
paint. Some artists even paint with their fingers.
Most oil painters paint in layers known as "glazes", a method also simply called "indirect painting".
This method was first perfected through an adaptation of the egg temperapainting technique, and
was applied by the Flemish painters in Northern Europe with pigments ground in linseed oil. More
recently, this approach has been called the "mixed technique" or "mixed method". The first coat
(the underpainting) is laid down, often painted with egg tempera or turpentine-thinned paint. This
layer helps to "tone" the canvas and to cover the white of the gesso. Many artists use this layer to
sketch out the composition. This first layer can be adjusted before proceeding further, an advantage
over the "cartooning" method used in Fresco technique. After this layer dries, the artist might then
proceed by painting a "mosaic" of color swatches[disambiguation needed], working from darkest to lightest. The

borders of the colors are blended together when the "mosaic" is completed, and then left to dry
before applying details.
Artists in later periods, such as the Impressionist era (late 19th century), often expanded on this weton-wet method, blending the wet paint on the canvas without following the Renaissance-era
approach of layering and glazing. This method is also called "alla prima". This method was created
due to the advent of painting outdoors, instead of inside a studio, because while outside, an artist did
not have the time to let each layer of paint dry before adding a new layer. Several contemporary
artists use a combination of both techniques to add bold color (wet-on-wet) and obtain the depth of
layers through glazing.
When the image is finished and has dried for up to a year, an artist often seals the work with a layer
of varnish that is typically made from dammar gum crystals dissolved in turpentine. Such varnishes
can be removed without disturbing the oil painting itself, to enable cleaning and conservation. Some
contemporary artists decide not to varnish their work, preferring the surface unvarnished.

HISTORY OF OIL ART

Although the history of tempera (pigment mixed with either egg whites or egg yolks, then painted on
a plastered section) and related media in Europe indicates that oil painting was discovered there
independently, there is evidence that oil painting was used earlier in Afghanistan. [2][3][4][5] Outdoor
surfaces and surfaces like shieldsboth those used in tournaments and those hung as decorations
were more durable when painted in oil-based media than when painted in the traditional tempera
paints.
Most Renaissance sources, in particular Vasari, credited northern European painters of the 15th
century, and Jan van Eyck in particular, with the "invention" of painting with oil media on wood
panel supports ("support" is the technical term for the underlying backing of a painting).
However,Theophilus (Roger of Helmarshausen?) clearly gives instructions for oil-based painting in
his treatise, On Various Arts, written in 1125. At this period, it was probably used for painting
sculptures, carvings and wood fittings, perhaps especially for outdoor use. However, early
Netherlandish painting in the 15th century was the first to make oil the usual painting medium, and
explore the use of layers and glazes, followed by the rest of Northern Europe, and only then Italy.
Early works were still panel paintings on wood, but around the end of the 15th
century canvas became more popular as the support, as it was cheaper, easier to transport, allowed
larger works, and did not require complicated preliminary layers of gesso (a fine type of plaster).
(This style was known as a fresco painting: applying gesso, then painting over with tempera

paint) Venice, where sail-canvas was easily available, was a leader in the move to canvas.
Small cabinet paintings were also made on metal, especially copper plates. These supports were
more expensive but very firm, allowing intricately fine detail. Often printing plates
from printmaking were reused for this purpose. The popularity of oil spread through Italy from the
North, starting in Venice in the late 15th century. By 1540, the previous method for painting on panel
(tempera) had become all but extinct, although Italians continued to use fresco for wall paintings,
which was less successful and durable in damper northern climates.
Brands of oil paint include: Winsor and Newton, Gamblin, Rembrandt, Lukas 1862, Lukas Studio,
Old Holland, Michael Harding and Charvin. It is important that artists understand that not all oil colors
are created equal. Many "student" brands on the market are really "hobby colors". Water-soluble oil
colors include: Winsor and Newton Artisan, Lukas Berlin and Woil water mixable oil colors.

COMICS / COMIC ART

WHAT IS COMIC ART ?

Comics is a medium used to express ideas by images, often combined with text or other visual
information. Comics frequently takes the form of juxtaposed sequences ofpanels of images. Often
textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, andonomatopoeia indicate dialogue, narration,
sound effects, or other information. Size and arrangement of panels contribute to narrative
pacing. Cartooning and similar forms of illustration are the most common image-making means in
comics; fumetti is a form which uses photographic images. Common forms of comics include comic
strips,editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 20th century, bound volumes such
as graphic novels, comic albums, and tankbon have become increasingly common, and
online webcomics have proliferated in the 21st century.
The history of comics has followed different paths in different cultures. Scholars have posited a prehistory as far back as the Lascaux cave paintings. By the mid-20th century, comics flourished
particularly in the United States, western Europe (especiallyin France and Belgium), and Japan. The
history of European comics is often traced toRodolphe Tpffer's cartoon strips of the 1830s, and
became popular following the success in the 1930s of strips and books such as The Adventures of
Tintin. American comics emerged as a mass medium in the early 20th century with the advent of
newspaper comic strips; magazine-style comic books followed in the 1930s, in which
the superhero genre became prominent after Superman appeared in 1938. Histories of Japanese

comics and cartooning (manga) propose origins as early as the 12th century. Modern comic strips
emerged in Japan in the early 20th century, and the output of comics magazines and books rapidly
expanded in the post-World War II era with the popularity of cartoonists such as Osamu Tezuka.
Comics has had a lowbrowreputation for much of its history, but towards the end of the 20th century
began to find greater acceptance with the public and in academia.
The English term comics is used as a singular noun when it refers to the medium and a plural when
referring to particular instances, such as individual strips or comic books. Though the term derives
from the humorous (or comic) work that predominated in early American newspaper comic strips, it
has become standard also for non-humorous works. It is common in English to refer to the comics of
different cultures by the terms used in their original languages, such as manga for Japanese comics,
or bandes dessines for French-language comics. There is no consensus amongst theorists and
historians on a definition of comics; some emphasize the combination of images and text, some
sequentiality or other image relations, and others historical aspects such as mass reproduction or
the use of recurring characters. The increasing cross-pollination of concepts from different comics
cultures and eras has further made definition difficult.

HISTORY OF COMICS

The European, American, and Japanese comics traditions have followed different paths. [1] Europeans
have seen their tradition as beginning with the Swiss Rodolphe Tpffer from as early as 1827 and
Americans have seen the origin of theirs in Richard F. Outcault's 1890s newspaper strip The Yellow
Kid, though many Americans have come to recognize Tpffer's precedence. [2] Japan had a long
prehistory of satirical cartoons and comics leading up to the World War II era. The ukiyoe artist Hokusai popularized the Japanese term for comics and cartooning, manga, in the early 19th
century.[3] In the post-war era modern Japanese comics began to flourish when Osamu
Tezuka produced a prolific body of work.[4] Towards the close of the 20th century, these three
traditions converged in a trend towards book-length comics: the comic album in Europe,
the tankbon[a] in Japan, and the graphic novel in the English-speaking countries.[1]
Outside of these genealogies, comics theorists and historians have seen precedents for comics in
the Lascaux cave paintings[5] in France (some of which appear to be chronological sequences of
images), Egyptian hieroglyphs, Trajan's Column in Rome,[6] the 11th-century Norman Bayeux
Tapestry,[7] the 1370 bois Protat woodcut, the 15th-century Ars moriendi and block books,
Michelangelo's The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel,[6] and William Hogarth's 17th-century
sequential engravings,[8] amongst others.[6][b]

English-language comics
Illustrated humour periodicals were popular in 19th-century Britain, the earliest of which was the
short-lived The Glasgow Looking Glass in 1825. The most popular was Punch,[10] which popularized
the term cartoon for its humorous caricatures.[11] On occasion the cartoons in these magazines
appeared in sequences;[10] the character Ally Sloper featured in the earliest serialized comic strip
when the character began to feature in its own weekly magazine in 1884. [12]
American comics developed out of such magazines as Puck, Judge, and Life. The success of
illustrated humour supplements in theNew York World and later the New York American, particularly
Outcault's The Yellow Kid, led to the development of newspaper comic strips. Early Sunday
strips were full-page[13] and often in colour. Between 1896 and 1901 cartoonists experimented with
sequentiality, movement, and speech balloons.[14]

Franco-Belgian and European comics

Main articles: European comics and Franco-Belgian comics
The francophone Swiss Rodolphe Tpffer produced comic strips beginning in 1827,[6] and published
theories behind the form.[31]Cartoons appeared widely in newspapers and magazines from the 19th
century.[32] The success of Zig et Puce in 1925 popularized the use of speech balloons in European
comics, after which Franco-Belgian comics began to dominate.[33] The Adventures of Tintin, with its
signature clear line style,[34] was first serialized in newspaper comics supplements beginning in 1929,
[35]

and became an icon of Franco-Belgian comics.[36]

Following the success of Le Journal de Mickey (193444),[37] dedicated comics magazines[38] and fullcolour comic albums became the primary outlet for comics in the mid-20th century.[39] As in the US, at
the time comics were seen as infantile and a threat to culture and literacy; commentators stated that
"none bear up to the slightest serious analysis", [c] and that comics were "the sabotage of all art and
all literature".[41][d]
In the 1960s, the term bandes dessines ("drawn strips") came into wide use in French to denote the
medium.[42] Cartoonists began creating comics for mature audiences,[43] and the term "Ninth Art"[e] was
coined, as comics began to attract public and academic attention as an artform. [44] A group
including Ren Goscinny and Albert Uderzo founded the magazine Pilote in 1959 to give artists
greater freedom over their work. Goscinny and Uderzo's The Adventures of Asterix appeared in
it[45] and went on to become the best-selling French-language comics series. [46]From 1960, the
satirical and taboo-breaking Hara-Kiri defied censorship laws in the countercultural spirit that led to
the May 1968 events.[47]
Frustration with censorship and editorial interference led to a group of Pilote cartoonists to found the
adults-only L'cho des savanes in 1972. Adult-oriented and experimental comics flourished in the
1970s, such as in the experimental science fiction ofMbius and others in Mtal hurlant, even
mainstream publishers took to publishing prestige-format adult comics. [48]

From the 1980s, mainstream sensibilities were reasserted and serialization became less common as
the number of comics magazines decreased and many comics began to be published directly as
albums.[49] Smaller publishers such as L'Association[50]that published longer works[51] in non-traditional
formats[52] by auteur-istic creators also became common. Since the 1990s, mergers resulted in fewer
large publishers, while smaller publishers proliferated. Sales overall continued to grow despite the
trend towards a shrinking print market.[53]

Japanese comics
Japanese comics and cartooning (manga),[g] have a history that has been seen as far back as the
anthropomorphic characters in the 12th-to-13th-century Chj-jinbutsu-giga, 17th-century tobae and kibyshi picture books,[57] and woodblock prints such as ukiyo-e which were popular between
the 17th and 20th centuries. The kibyshi contained examples of sequential images, movement
lines,[58] and sound effects.[59]
Illustrated magazines for Western expatriates introduced Western-style satirical cartoons to Japan in
the late 19th century. New publications in both the Western and Japanese styles became popular,
and at the end of the 1890s, American-style newspaper comics supplements began to appear in
Japan,[60] as well as some American comic strips.[57] 1900 saw the debut of the Jiji Manga in the Jiji
Shinp newspaperthe first use of the word "manga" in its modern sense, [56] and where, in
1902, Rakuten Kitazawa began the first modern Japanese comic strip.[61] By the 1930s, comic strips
were serialized in large-circulation monthly girls' and boys' magazine and collected into hardback
volumes.[62]
The modern era of comics in Japan began after World War II, propelled by the success of the
serialized comics of the prolific Osamu Tezuka[63] and the comic strip Sazae-san.[64]Genres and
audiences diversified over the following decades. Stories are usually first serialized in magazines
which are often hundreds of pages thick and may contain over a dozen stories; [65] they are later
compiled in tankbon-format books.[66] At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, nearly a quarter of
all printed material in Japan was comics.[67]translations became extremely popular in foreign markets
in some cases equaling or surpassing the sales of domestic comics. [68]

FORMS AND FORMATS

Comic strips are generally short, multipanel comics that traditionally most commonly appeared in
newspapers. In the US, daily strips have normally occupied a single tier, while Sunday strips have
been given multiple tiers. In the early 20th century, daily strips were typically in black-and-white and
Sundays were usually in colour and often occupied a full page. [69]
Specialized comics periodicals formats vary greatly in different cultures. Comic books, primarily an
American format, are thin periodicals[70] usually published in colour.[71] European and Japanese

comics are frequently serialized in magazinesmonthly or weekly in Europe, [56] and usually blackand-white and weekly in Japan.[72] Japanese comics magazine typically run to hundreds of pages.[73]
A comparison of book formats for comics around the world. The left group is from Japan and shows
thetankbon and the smaller bunkobon formats. Those in the middle group of Franco-Belgian comics are in the
standard A4-size comic album format. The right group of graphic novels is from English-speaking countries,
where there is no standard format.

Book-length comics take different forms in different cultures. European comic albums are most
commonly printed in A4-size[74]colour volumes.[39] In English-speaking countries, bound volumes of
comics are called graphic novels and are available in various formats. Despite incorporating the term
"novel"a term normally associated with fiction"graphic novel" also refers to non-fiction and
collections of short works.[75] Japanese comics are collected in volumes called tankbon following
magazine serialization.[76]
Gag and editorial cartoons usually consist of a single panel, often incorporating a caption or speech
balloon. Definitions of comics which emphasize sequence usually exclude gag, editorial, and other
single-panel cartoons; they can be included in definitions that emphasize the combination of word
and image.[77] Gag cartoons first began to proliferate in broadsheets published in Europe in the 18th
and 19th centuries, and the term "cartoon"[h] was first used to describe them in 1843 in the British
humour magazinePunch.[11]
Webcomics are comics that are available on the internet. They are able to reach large audiences,
and new readers usually can access archived installments. [78] Webcomics can make use of an infinite
canvasmeaning they are not constrained by size or dimensions of a page. [79]
Some consider storyboards[80] and wordless novels to be comics.[81] Film studios, especially in
animation, often use sequences of images as guides for film sequences. These storyboards are not
intended as an end product and are rarely seen by the public. [80]Wordless novels are books which
use sequences of captionless images to deliver a narrative.[82]

WOODCUT
WHAT IS WOODCUT?

Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a
block of woodtypically with gougesleaving the printing parts level with the surface while
removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or
images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is cut along the grain of the
wood (unlike wood engraving where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is covered with

ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but
not in the non-printing areas.
Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks (using a
different block for each color). The art of carving the woodcut can be called "xylography", but this is
rarely used in English for images alone, although that and "xylographic" are used in connection
withblockbooks, which are small books containing text and images in the same block. Single-leaf
woodcut is a term for a woodcut presented as a single image or print, as opposed to a book
illustration.

HISTORY

Woodcut or woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns that was used
widely throughout East Asia. It originated in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and
later on paper.The earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China and are of silk
printed with flowers in three colours from the Han Dynasty (before AD 220).[3] "In the 13th century the
Chinese technique of blockprinting was transmitted to Europe." [4] Paper arrived in Europe, also from
China via Islamic Spain, slightly later, and was being manufactured in Italy by the end of the
thirteenth century, and in Burgundy and Germany by the end of the fourteenth.
In Europe, woodcut is the oldest technique used for old master prints, developing about 1400, by
using, on paper, existing techniques for printing. One of the more ancient woodcuts on paper that
can be seen today is The Fire Madonna (Madonna del Fuoco, in the Italian language), in the
Cathedral of Forl, in Italy.
The explosion of sales of cheap woodcuts in the middle of the century led to a fall in standards, and
many popular prints were very crude. The development of hatching followed on rather later
than engraving. Michael Wolgemut was significant in making German woodcuts more sophisticated
from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich was the first to use cross-hatching (far harder to do than
engraving or etching). Both of these produced mainly book-illustrations, as did various Italian artists
who were also raising standards there at the same period. At the end of the century Albrecht
Drerbrought the Western woodcut to a level that, arguably, has never been surpassed, and greatly
increased the status of the single-leaf woodcut (i.e. an image sold separately).
As woodcut can be easily printed together with movable type, because both are relief-printed, it was
the main medium for book illustrations until the late-sixteenth century. The first woodcut book
illustration dates to about 1461, only a few years after the beginning of printing with movable type,
printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg. Woodcut was used less often for individual ("single-leaf")

fine-art prints from about 1550 until the late nineteenth century, when interest revived. It remained
important for popular prints until the nineteenth century in most of Europe, and later in some places.
The art reached a high level of technical and artistic development in East Asia and Iran. In Japan
woodblock printing is called "moku hanga", and was introduced in the seventeenth century for both
books and art. The popular "floating world" genre of ukiyo-e originated in the second half of the
seventeenth century, with prints inmonochrome or two colours. Sometimes these were handcoloured after printing. Later prints with many colours were developed. Japanese woodcut became a
major artistic form, although at the time it was accorded a much lower status than painting. It
continued to develop through to the twentieth century.

DIVISION OF LABOR
WHAT IS DIVISION OF LABOR?

The assignment of different parts of a manufacturing process or task to different people in order
to improve efficiency.

In both Europe and the Far East, traditionally the artist only designed the woodcut, and the blockcarving was left to specialist craftsmen, called block-cutters, or Formschneider in Germany, some
of whom became well known in their own right. Among these the best known are the 16th
century Hieronymus Andreae (who also used "Formschneider" as his surname), Hans
Ltzelburger and Jost de Negker, all of whom ran workshops and also operated as printers and
publishers. The formschneider in turn handed the block on to specialist printers. There were further
specialists who made the blank blocks.
This is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as "designed by" rather than
"by" an artist; but most authorities do not use this distinction. The division of labour had the
advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium relatively easily, without needing to learn
the use of woodworking tools.
There were various methods of transferring the artist's drawn design onto the block for the cutter to
follow. Either the drawing would be made directly onto the block (often whitened first), or
a drawingon paper was glued to the block. Either way, the artist's drawing was destroyed during the
cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing.
In both Europe and the Far East, such as Japan and China, in the early twentieth century some
artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement was called Ssaku

hanga, as opposed to the Shin hanga movement, which retained the traditional methods. In the
West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead.

METHODS OF PRINTING

Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print. As
a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the
paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. In Europe a variety of woods including boxwoodand
several nut and fruit woods like pear or cherry were commonly used;[1] in Japan, the wood of the
cherry species Prunus serrulata was preferred.[citation needed]
There are three methods of printing to consider:

Stamping: Used for many fabrics and most early European woodcuts (140040). These were
printed by putting the paper/fabric on a table or other flat surface with the block on top, and
pressing or hammering the back of the block

Rubbing: Apparently the most common method for Far Eastern printing on paper at all times.
Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the fifteenth century, and very widely for
cloth. Also used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910 to the present. The block goes
face up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top. The back is rubbed with a "hard pad, a flat
piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton".[2] A traditional Japanese tool used for this is
called a baren. Later in Japan, complex wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the
woodblock perfectly still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process. This was
especially helpful once multiple colors were introduced and had to be applied with precision atop
previous ink layers.

Printing in a press: presses only seem to have been used in Asia in relatively recent
times. Printing-presses were used from about 1480 for European prints and block-books, and
before that for woodcut book illustrations. Simple weighted presses may have been used in
Europe before the print-press, but firm evidence is lacking. A deceased Abbess of Mechelen in
1465 had "unum instrumentum ad imprintendum scripturas et ymagines ... cum 14 aliis lapideis
printis""an instrument for printing texts and pictures ... with 14 stones for printing." This is
probably too early to be a Gutenberg-type printing press in that location.[2]

COLOR WOODCUTS

Coloured woodcuts first appeared in ancient China. The oldest known are three Buddhist images
dating to the 10th century. European woodcut prints with coloured blocks were invented in Germany
in 1508 and are known as chiaroscuro woodcuts (see below). However, colour did not become the
norm, as it did in Japan, in the ukiyo-e and other forms.
In Europe and Japan, colour woodcuts were normally only used for prints rather than book
illustrations. In China, where the individual print did not develop until the nineteenth century, the
reverse is true, and early colour woodcuts mostly occur in luxury books about art, especially the
more prestigious medium of painting. The first known example is a book on ink-cakes printed in
1606, and colour technique reached its height in books on painting published in the seventeenth
century. Notable examples are Hu Zhengyan's Treatise on the Paintings and Writings of the Ten
Bamboo Studio of 1633,[6] and the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual published in 1679 and
1701.[7]

In Japan colour technique, called nishiki-e in its fully developed form, spread more widely, and was
used for prints, from the 1760s on. Text was nearly always monochrome, as were images in books,
but the growth of the popularity of ukiyo-e brought with it demand for ever increasing numbers of
colors and complexity of techniques. By the nineteenth century most artists worked in colour. The
stages of this development were:

Sumizuri-e (, "ink printed pictures") - monochrome printing using only black ink

Benizuri-e (, "crimson printed pictures") - red ink details or highlights added by hand
after the printing processgreen was sometimes used as well

Tan-e () - orange highlights using a red pigment called tan

Aizuri-e (, "indigo printed pictures"), Murasaki-e (, "purple pictures"), and other

styles that used a single color in addition to, or instead of, black ink

Urushi-e () - a method that used glue to thicken the ink, emboldening the image; gold,
mica and other substances were often used to enhance the image further. Urushi-e can also
refer to paintings using lacquer instead of paint; lacquer was very rarely if ever used on prints.

Nishiki-e (, "brocade pictures") - a method that used multiple blocks for separate
portions of the image, so a number of colors could achieve incredibly complex and detailed
images; a separate block was carved to apply only to the portion of the image designated for a
single color. Registration marks called kent () ensured correspondence between the
application of each block.

In the 19th century a number of different methods of colour printing using woodcut
(technicallyChromoxylography) were developed in Europe. George Baxter patented in 1835 a
method using anintaglio line plate (or occasionally a lithograph), printed in black or a dark colour,
and then overprinted with up to twenty different colours from woodblocks. Edmund Evans used relief
and wood throughout, with up to eleven different colours, and latterly specialized in illustrations for
children's books, using fewer blocks but overprinting non-solid areas of colour to achieve blended
colours. Artists such as Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway were influenced by
the Japanese prints now available and fashionable in Europe to create a suitable style, with flat
areas of colour.

In the 20th century, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner of the Die Brcke group developed a process of
producing colored woodcut prints using a single block applying different colors to the block with a
brush la poupe and then printing (halfway between a woodcut and a monotype).[8] A remarkable
example of this technique is the 1915 Portrait of Otto Mller woodcut print from the collection of
the British Museum.[9]

TAPESTRY
WHAT IS TAPESTRY?

Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom. Tapestry isweft-faced
weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike cloth weaving where
both the warp and the weft threads may be visible. In tapestry weaving, weft yarns are typically
discontinuous; the artisan interlaces each coloured weft back and forth in its own small pattern area.
It is a plain weft-faced weave having weft threads of different colours worked over portions of the
warp to form the design.[1][2]
Most weavers use a natural warp thread, such as linen or cotton. The weft threads are usually wool
or cotton, but may include silk, gold, silver, or other alternatives.

HISTORY

Tapestries have been used since at least Hellenistic times. Samples of Greek tapestry have been
found preserved in the desert ofTarim Basin dating from the 3rd century BC.

Tapestry reached a new stage in Europe in the early 14th century AD. The first wave of production
originated in Germany and Switzerland. Over time, the craft expanded to France and the
Netherlands. The basic tools have remained much the same.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, Arras, France was a thriving textile town. The industry specialised in
fine wool tapestries which were sold to decorate palaces and castles all over Europe. Few of these
tapestries survived the French Revolution as hundreds were burnt to recover the gold thread that
was often woven into them. Arras is still used to refer to a rich tapestry no matter where it was
woven. Indeed, as literary scholar Rebecca Olson argues, arras were the most valuable objects in
England during the early modern period and inspired writers such as William Shakespeare and
Edmund Spenser to weave these tapestries into their most important works such as Hamlet and The
Faerie Queen.[9]
By the 16th century, Flanders, the towns of Oudenaarde, Brussels, Geraardsbergen and Enghien
had become the centres of European tapestry production. In the 17th century,Flemish tapestries
were arguably the most important productions, with many specimens of this era still extant,
demonstrating the intricate detail of pattern and colour embodied in painterly compositions, often of
monumental scale.
In the 19th century, William Morris resurrected the art of tapestry-making in the medieval style
at Merton Abbey. Morris & Co. made successful series of tapestries for home and ecclesiastical
uses, with figures based on cartoons by Edward Burne-Jones.
Kilims and Navajo rugs are also types of tapestry work.
In the mid-twentieth century, new tapestry art forms were developed by children at theRamses
Wissa Wassef Art Centre in Harrania, Egypt, and by modern French artists underJean Lurat in
Aubusson, France. Traditional tapestries are still made at the factory ofGobelins and a few other old
European workshops, which also repair and restore old tapestries.

CONTEMPORARY TAPESTRIES
While tapestries have been created for many centuries and in every continent in the world, what
distinguishes the contemporary field from its pre World War ll history is the predominance of the
artist as weaver in the contemporary medium.
This trend has its roots in France during the 1950s where one of the "cartoonists" for the Aubusson
Tapestry studios, Jean Lurat spearheaded a revival of the medium by streamlining color selection,
thereby simplifying production,[10] and by organizing a series of Biennial exhibits held in Lausanne,

Switzerland. The Polish work submitted to the first Biennale, which opened in 1962, was quite novel.
Traditional workshops in Poland had collapsed as a result of the war. Also art supplies in general
were hard to acquire. Many Polish artists had learned to weave as part of their art school training
and began creating highly individualistic work by using atypical materials like jute and sisal. With
each Biennale the popularity of works focusing on exploring innovative constructions from a wide
variety of fiber resounded around the world.[11]
There were many weavers in pre-war United States, but there had never been a prolonged system
of workshops for producing tapestries. Therefore, weavers in America were primarily self-taught and
chose to design as well as weave their art. Through these Lausanne exhibitions, US artists/weavers,
and others in countries all over the world, were excited about the Polish trend towards experimental
forms. Throughout the 1970s almost all weavers had explored some manner of techniques and
materials in vogue at the time. What this movement contributed to the newly realized field of art
weaving, termed "contemporary tapestry", was the option for working with texture, with a variety of
materials and with the freedom for individuality in design
In the 1980s it became clear that the process of weaving weft-faced tapestry had another benefit,
that of stability. The artists who chose tapestry as their medium developed a broad range of personal
expression, styles and subject matter, stimulated and nourished by an international movement to
revive and renew tapestry traditions from all over the world. Competing for commissions and
expanding exhibition venues were essential factors in how artists defined and accomplished their
goals.
Much of the impetus in the 1980s for working in this more traditional process came from the Bay
Area in Northern California where, twenty years earlier, Mark Adams, an eclectic artist, had two
exhibits of his tapestry designs. He went on to design many large tapestries for local buildings. Hal
Painter, another well-respected artist in the area became a prolific tapestry artist during the decade
weaving his own designs. He was one of the main artists to "create the atmosphere which helped
give birth to the second phase of the contemporary textile movement textiles as art that
recognition that textiles no longer had to be utilitarian, functional, to serve as interior decoration." [12]
Early in the 1980s many artists committed to getting more professional and often that meant
traveling to attend the rare educational programs offered by newly formed ateliers, such as the San
Francisco Tapestry Workshop, or to far-away institutions they identified as fitting their needs. This
phenomenon was happening in Europe and Australia as well as in North America.
Opportunities for entering juried tapestry exhibits were beginning to happen by 1986, primarily
because the American Tapestry Alliance (ATA), founded in 1982, organized biennial juried exhibits
starting in 1986. The biennials were planned to coincide with the Handweavers Guild or America's
"Convergence" conferences. The new potential for seeing the work of other tapestry artists and the
ability to observe how one's own work might fare in such venues profoundly increased the

awareness of a community of like-minded artists. Regional groups were formed for producing
exhibits and sharing information.[13]
The desire of many artists for greater interaction escalated as an international tapestry symposium in
Melbourne, Australia in 1988 lead to a second organization committed to tapestry, the International
Tapestry Network (ITNET). Its goal was to connect American tapestry artists with the burgeoning
international community. The magazines were discontinued in 1997 as communicating digitally
became a more useful tool for interactions. As the world has moved into the digital age, tapestry
artists around the world continue to share and inspire each other's work.
By the new millennium however, fault lines had surfaced within the field. Many universities that
previously had strong weaving components in their art departments, such as San Francisco State
University, no longer offered handweaving as an option as they shifted their focus to computerized
equipment. A primary cause for discarding the practice was the fact that only one student could use
the equipment for the duration of a project whereas in most media, like painting or ceramics, the
easels or potters wheels were used by several students in a day.
At the same time, "fiber art" had become one of the most popular mediums in their art programs.
Young artists were interested in exploring a wider scope of processes for creating art through the
materials classified as fiber. This shift to more multimedia and sculptural forms and the desire to
produce work more quickly had the effect of pushing contemporary tapestry artists inside and
outside the academic institutions to ponder how they might keep pace in order to sustain visibility in
their art form.[14]

GRAPHIC ART
WHAT IS GRAPHIC ART?

Graphic design is the process of visual communication and problem-solving through the use of
typography, space, image and color.
The field is considered a subset of visual communication and communication design, but sometimes
the term "graphic design" is used interchangeably with these due to overlapping skills involved.
Graphic designers use various methods to create and combine words, symbols, and images to
create a visual representation of ideas and messages. A graphic designer may use a combination
of typography, visual arts, and page layout techniques to produce a final result. Graphic design often
refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products
(designs) which are generated.

Common uses of graphic design include identity (logos and branding), publications
(magazines, newspapers and books), print advertisements, posters, billboards, websitegraphics and
elements, signs and product packaging. For example, a product package might include a logo or
other artwork, organized text and pure design elements such as images, shapes and color which
unify the piece. Composition is one of the most important features of graphic design, especially
when using pre-existing materials or diverse elements.

HISTORY

While Graphic Design as a discipline has a relatively recent history, first coined by William Addison
Dwiggins in 1922,[2] graphic design-like activities span the history of humankind: from the caves
of Lascaux, to Rome's Trajan's Column to the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, to the
dazzling neons of Ginza. In truth "Babylon, artisans pressed cuneiform inscriptions into clay bricks or
tablets which were used for construction. The bricks gave information such as the name of the
reigning monarch, the builder, or some other dignitary".[3] Arguably, this could have been identified as
the first billboard or road signs announcing the name of the governor of a state or mayor of the city
today. The Egyptians developed a key communication by hieroglyphics which used picture symbols
dating as far back as 136 B.C. found on the Rosetta Stone. "The Rosetta stone, found by one of
Napoleon's engineers was an advertisement for the Egyptian ruler, Ptolemy as the "true Son of the
Sun, the Father of the Moon, and the Keeper of the Happiness of Men"" [3]Further, the Egyptians also
brought the invention of papyrus, paper made from reeds found along the Nile, on which they
transcribed advertisements more common among their people at the time. Between the dates of
500A.D. and 1450 A.D., also known as the "Dark Ages", it was the Monks that kept the symbols and
writings alive when much of the citizenry were stagnated in progressive learning in reading and
writing. In both this lengthy history and in the relatively recent explosion of visual communication in
the 20th and 21st centuries, there is sometimes a blurring distinction and overlapping
of advertising art, graphic design andfine art. After all, they share many of the same elements,
theories, principles, practices andlanguages, and sometimes the same benefactor or client.
In advertising art the ultimate objective is the sale of goods and services. In graphic design, "the
essence is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression and feeling to artifacts that
document human experience."[4] The History even as far back as Benjamin Franklin who use this
paper The Pennsylvania Gazette, in 1728 he mastered the art of publicity not only did he promote
his own books he used it to influence what he thought the masses should read, as well. "Benjamin
Franklin's ingenuity gained in strength as did his cunning and in 1737 he had replaced his
counterpart in Pennsylvania, Andrew Bradford as postmaster and printer after a competition he
instituted as copywriter and therefore won. He showed his prowess by running an ad in his General
Magazine and the Historical Chronicle of British Plantations in America (the precursor to the
Saturday Evening Post) that stressed the benefits offered by a stove he invented, named called

the Pennsylvania Fireplace, which is still sold today and is known as the Franklin Stove. "[5] American
Advertising was as American as primitive plumbing as it imitated British newspapers and magazines.
Newspapers offered 3 blocks of telling society, or the slaves that ran away from their masters.
Advertisements were printed in scrambled type and uneven lines which made it difficult to read. It
was Benjamin Franklin that changed this by adding 14 point heading of the first line of the
advertisement; although later it was shortened and centered, making a real heading. Franklin's use
of type was masterful, he instinctively knew what "appealed to the eye". It was Franklin that added
illustrations which was something that not even London printers had done and was considered most
advanced. Benjamin Franklin was the first to invent logos, which were early symbols that announced
such advertisements as opticians with golden spectacles. Benjamin Franklin taught the advertisers
that the use of detail was important to tell the story of their products. The idea of telling a story grew
a monster as some began advertising in 10-20 lines adding color, names, varieties, and sizes of the
goods they offered. The early advertisements tell us a lot about the culture, the thoughts and
conditions that the colonists faced during the establishment of this great nation in its advertising
infancy.

APPLICATIONS
From road signs to technical schematics, from interoffice memorandums to referencemanuals,
graphic design enhances transfer of knowledge and visual messages. Readabilityand legibility is
enhanced by improving the visual presentation and layout of text.
Design can also aid in selling a product or idea through effective visual communication. It is applied
to products and elements of company identity like logos, colors, packaging, and text. Together these
are defined as branding (see also advertising). Branding has increasingly become important in the
range of services offered by many graphic designers, alongside corporate identity. Whilst the terms
are often used interchangeably, branding is more strictly related to the identifying mark or trade
name for a product or service, whereas corporate identity can have a broader meaning relating to
the structure and ethos of a company, as well as to the company's external image. Graphic
designers will often form part of a team working on corporate identity and branding projects. Other
members of that team can include marketing professionals, communications consultants and
commercial writers.

Textbooks are designed to present subjects such as geography, science, and math. These
publications have layouts which illustratetheories and diagrams. A common example of graphics in
use to educate is diagrams of human anatomy. Graphic design is also applied to layout and
formatting of educational material to make the information more accessible and more readily
understandable.
Graphic wayfinding signage systems have become important for large public spaces such as
airports and convention centers. These systems often depend on graphic design to communicate
information quickly and economically through a color or symbol that can be read and followed from a
distance (as opposed to large amounts of text). Such environmental graphic design systems allow
people to navigate unfamiliar spaces. The term "architectural graphics" was coined by Jane Davis
Doggett, pioneer designer of airport wayfinding systems, but the term more commonly used in 2014
is environmental graphics.[15]
Graphic design is applied in the entertainment industry in decoration, scenery, and visual story
telling. Other examples of design for entertainment purposes include novels, comic books, DVD
covers, opening credits and closing credits in filmmaking, and programs and props on stage. This
could also include artwork used for T-shirts and other items screenprinted for sale.
From scientific journals to news reporting, the presentation of opinion and facts is often improved
with graphics and thoughtful compositions of visual information - known as information design.
Newspapers, magazines, blogs, television and film documentaries may use graphic design to inform
and entertain. With the advent of the web, information designers with experience in interactive tools
such as Adobe Flash are increasingly being used to illustrate the background to news stories.

TYPHOGRAPHY

Typography is the art, craft and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging
type. Type glyphs (characters) are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques.
The arrangement of type is the selection of typefaces, point size, tracking (the space between all
characters used), kerning (the space between two specific characters), and leading (line spacing).
Typography is performed by typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic artists, art directors,
and clerical workers. Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. Digitization
opened up typography to new generations of visual designers and lay users.

CLAY SCULPTURE / POTTERY

WHAT IS POTTERY

Pottery is the ceramic material which makes up potterywares,[1] of which major types
include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called
a pottery (plural "potteries"). Pottery also refers to the art or craft of a potter or the manufacture of
pottery.[2][3] A dictionary definition is simply objects of fired clays.[4] The definition of pottery used by
the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) is "all fired ceramic wares that contain clay
when formed, except technical, structural, and refractory products." [5]
Pottery originated before the Neolithic period, with ceramic objects like the Gravettianculture Venus
of Doln Vstonice figurine discovered in the Czech Republic date back to 29,00025,000 BC, [6] and
pottery vessels that were discovered in Jiangxi, China, which date back to 18,000 BC. Early
Neolithic pottery have been found in places such as JomonJapan (10,500 BC),[7] the Russian Far
East (14,000 BC),[8] Sub-Saharan Africa and South America.
Pottery is made by forming a clay body into objects of a required shape and heating them to high
temperatures in a kiln which removes all the water from the clay, which induces reactions that lead
to permanent changes including increasing their strength and hardening and setting their shape. A
clay body can be decorated before or after firing. Prior to some shaping processes, clay must be
prepared. Kneading helps to ensure an even moisture content throughout the body. Air trapped
within the clay body needs to be removed. This is called de-airing and can be accomplished by a
machine called a vacuum pug or manually by wedging. Wedging can also help produce an even
moisture content. Once a clay body has been kneaded and de-aired or wedged, it is shaped by a
variety of techniques. After shaping it is dried and then fired.

HISTORY

A great part of the history of pottery is prehistoric, part of past pre-literate cultures. Therefore, much
of this history can only be found among the artifacts of archaeology. Because pottery is so durable,
pottery and sherds of pottery survive from millennia at archaeological sites.
Before pottery becomes part of a culture, several conditions must generally be met.

First, there must be usable clay available. Archaeological sites where the earliest pottery was
found were near deposits of readily available clay that could be properly shaped and fired. China

has large deposits of a variety of clays, which gave them an advantage in early development of
fine pottery. Many countries have large deposits of a variety of clays.

Second, it must be possible to heat the pottery to temperatures that will achieve the
transformation from raw clay to ceramic. Methods to reliably create fires hot enough to fire
pottery did not develop until late in the development of cultures.

Third, the potter must have time available to prepare, shape and fire the clay into pottery.
Even after control of fire was achieved, humans did not seem to develop pottery until a
sedentary life was achieved. It has been hypothesized that pottery was developed only after
humans established agriculture, which led to permanent settlements. However, the oldest known
pottery is from China and dates to 20,000 BC, at the height of the ice age, long before the
beginnings of agriculture.

Fourth, there must be a sufficient need for pottery in order to justify the resources required
for its production.[31]

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN PRODUCTION

Although many of the environmental effects of pottery production have existed for millennia, some of
these have been amplified with modern technology and scales of production. The principal factors
for consideration fall into two categories: (a) effects on workers, and (b) effects on the general
environment. Within the effects on workers, chief impacts are indoor air quality, sound levels and
possible over-illumination. Regarding the general environment, factors of interest are fuel
consumption, off-site water pollution, air pollution and disposal of hazardous materials.
Historically, "plumbism" (lead poisoning) was a significant health concern to those glazing pottery.
This was recognised at least as early as the nineteenth century, and the first legislation in the United
Kingdom to limit pottery workers' exposure was introduced in 1899. [65] While the risk to those working
in ceramics is now much reduced, it can still not be ignored. With respect to indoor air quality,
workers can be exposed to fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide and certain heavy metals. The
greatest health risk is the potential to develop silicosis from the long-term exposure to
crystalline silica. Proper ventilation can reduce the risks, and the first legislation in the United
Kingdom to govern ventilation was introduced in 1899. [65] Another, more recent, study at Laney
College, Oakland, California suggests that all these factors can be controlled in a well-designed
workshop environment.[66]