Method

and
materials
Semester 3

Rahul Juneja
Painting Second Year
Roll Number:

Submitted to:
Ms. Shilpi Aggarwal
 Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the college faculty for

helping me produce this project. My deepest
gratitude to Ms. Shilpi Aggarwal for guiding
me through the research and project work.
 Method and materials can be described as the materials used in creation of
art, as well as production or manifacturing technique, process, or methods
incorporated in it’s fabrication. This information includes bnoth a description
of materials as well as the way in which they go together. Differnet medium
may be used at a spcecific stage in the process of creation of art. In the
creative process, the practitioner may examine The use of particular materials
to develop a new way of art.

Charcoal
Artists' charcoal is a form of dry art medium made of finely ground organic materials that are held
together by a gum or wax binder or produced without the use of binders by eliminating the oxygen
inside the material during the production process.[1] These charcoals are often used by artists for their
versatile properties, such as the rough texture that leaves marks less permanent than other art
media.[2] Charcoal can produce lines that are very light or intensely black, while being easily removable,
yet vulnerable to leaving stains on paper. The dry medium can be applied to almost any surface from
smooth to very coarse. Fixatives are often used with charcoal drawings to solidify the position to
prevent erasing or rubbing off of charcoal dusts.

The method used to create artists' charcoal is similar to that employed in other fields, such as producing
gunpowder and cooking fuel. The type of wood material and preparation method allow a variety of
charcoal types and textures to be produced.[3]

Types

There are various types and uses of charcoal as an art medium, but the commonly used types are:
Compressed, Vine, and Pencil.

1. Vine charcoal is a long and thin charcoal stick that is the result of burning grape vines in a kiln
without air.
2. Willow charcoal is a long and thin charcoal stick that is the result of burning willow sticks in a
kiln without air.

The removable properties of willow and vine charcoal, through dusting and erasing, are favored by
artists for making preliminary sketches or basic compositions. This also makes such charcoal less suitable
for creating detailed images.

3. Compressed charcoal (also referred as charcoal sticks) is shaped into a block or a stick. Intensity
of the shade is determined by hardness. The amount of gum or wax binders used during the
production process affects the hardness, softer producing intensely black markings while firmer
leaves light markings.[4]
Charcoal pencils consist of compressed charcoal enclosed in a jacket of wood. Designed to be similar to
graphite pencils while maintaining most of the properties of charcoal, they are often used for fine and
crisp detailed drawings, while keeping the user's hand from being marked.[5]

Other types of artists' charcoal such as charcoal crayons were developed during the 19th century and
used by caricaturists.[6]Charcoal powders are used to create patterns and pouncing, a transferring
method of patterns from one surface to another.[citation needed]

Pigment And Preperation

There are wide variations in artists' charcoal, depending on the proportion of ingredients: compressed
charcoal from burned birch, clay, lamp black pigment, and a small quantity of ultramarine. The longer
this mixture is heated, the softer it becomes.[7]

History

Charcoal was often a key component of Cave painting, with examples dating back to at least 28,000
years ago.

One of the oldest paintings is a picture of a zebra, found at the Apollo cave in Namibia.

Since then, many cultures have utilized charcoal for art, camouflage, and in rites of passage. Many
indigenous people from Australia, parts of Africa, Pacific Islands, parts of Asia, and others still practice
body painting for rites of passage including child birth, weddings, spiritual rituals, war, hunting, and
funerary rites. Many artists use charcoal because of its unique dark black strokes. The weak structure of
charcoal causes the material to flake off onto the canvas.

In the renaissance, Charcoal was widely used, but few works of art survived due to charcoal particles
flaking off the canvas. At the end of the 15th century, a process of submerging the drawings in a gum
bath was implemented to prevent the charcoal from flaking away.

Throughout western art history, artists well known for other mediums have used charcoal for sketching
or preliminary studies for final paintings. Examples of contemporary artists using charcoal as a primary
medium are Robert Longo, William Kentridge, Dan Pyle and Joel Daniel Phillips.

Throughout the Renaissance, most artists used charcoal to prepare their panel paintings or fresco
murals, and many used charcoal in their drawing studies. However, some masters used charcoal alone
or with chalks and ink to create stunning masterpieces.

Michelangelo’s “Study of a Man Shouting” illustrates, that in a skilled hand, charcoal could capture both
emotion and detail, and produce subtly in both shade and tone. Charcoal’s use continued beyond the
Renaissance, sweeping through the Romantic period and into the modern 20th century. In the Romantic
period, French sculptor, Antoine-Louis Baryen used charcoal to create “Dead Young Elephant.” His
depiction of the fallen giant is another example of the depth and emotion possible in charcoal drawings.
With a variety of dark and light strokes, and his shading and detail, the elephant’s image slowly fades
between stark realism and gentle, sorrowful abstraction.

German expressionist Ernst Barlach created many dramatic charcoal drawings. His “Self-Portrait,” from
1928, clearly captures the weariness and frustration of a pacifist at odds with his homeland’s Nazi
wartime regime. Still another example of charcoal’s ability to evoke delicate, yet stirring emotion is
found in Robert Blackburn’s “Man With Load” from 1936. Blackburn’s mixture of darkness and shadow
portrays the emotional drudgery and physical exertion of the laborer. As one of the world’s longest
surviving artistic media, charcoal has provided a means to sketch and draw with increased attention to
quality, tone and subtly. Artists continue to employ this medium because of its versatile ability to
capture both gestures and emotions with an intuitive mixture of the soft and the dark.

Hatching : It is a method in which thin, dark lines are continuously placed parallel to each-other. When
done with charcoal, it comes out smoother and darker.

Rubbing : Rubbing is done with a sheet of paper pressed against the targeted surface then rubbing
charcoal against the paper. It creates an image of the texture of the surface.

Blending: Blending is done to create smooth transitions between darker and lighter areas of a drawing.
It can also create a shadow effect. Two common methods of blending are, using a finger to rub or spread
charcoal which has been applied to the paper or the use of paper blending stumps also called a Tortillon.
Many prefer to use a chamois, which is a soft square piece of leather.

Lifting (Erasing) Erasing is often performed with a kneaded rubber eraser. This is a malleable eraser that
is often claimed to be self-cleaning. It can be shaped by kneading it softly with hands, into tips for
smaller areas or flipped inside out to clean.

Some Amazing Charcoal Works till Date are:

Michelangelo

Christ at the Column (1516) Black chalk heightened with lead white (discolored) over stylus.

Albrecht Dürer

Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Peter Paul Rubins

A Study for Christ for “The Elevation of the Cross,” 1610-1611.

Some of the artists currently working in charcoal include:

1. Diego fazio
2. Paul cadden
3. Kelvin Okafor

Pastels
A pastel (UK: /ˈpæstəl/, US: /pæˈstɛl/) is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure
powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all
colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation. The color effect
of pastels is closer to the natural dry pigments than that of any other process.[1]

Pastels have been used by artists since the Renaissance, and gained considerable popularity in the 18th
century, when a number of notable artists made pastel their primary medium.

An artwork made using pastels is called a pastel (or a pastel drawing or pastel painting). Pastel used as a
verb means to produce an artwork with pastels; as an adjective it means pale in color.

Types of Pastels

Pastel sticks or crayons consist of pure powdered pigment combined with a binder. The exact
composition and characteristics of an individual pastel stick depends on the type of pastel and the type
and amount of binder used. It also varies by individual manufacturer.

Dry pastels have historically used binders such as gum arabic and gum tragacanth. Methyl cellulose was
introduced as a binder in the twentieth century. Often a chalk or gypsum component is present. They
are available in varying degrees of hardness, the softer varieties being wrapped in paper. Some pastel
brands use pumice in the binder to abrade the paper and create more tooth.

Dry pastel media can be subdivided as follows:

1. Soft pastels: This is the most widely used form of pastel. The sticks have a higher portion of
pigment and less binder, resulting in brighter colors. The drawing can be readily smudged and
blended, but it results in a higher proportion of dust. Finished drawings made with soft pastels
require protecting, either framing under glass or spraying with a fixative to prevent smudging;
hairspray also works, although caution should be taken, as fixatives may affect the color or
texture of the drawing.[2] White chalk may be used as a filler in producing pale and bright hues
with greater luminosity.[3]
 2. Pan pastels: These are formulated with a minimum of binder in flat compacts (similar to some
makeup) and applied with special Soft micropore sponge tools. No liquid is involved. A 21st-
century invention, pan pastels can be used for the entire painting or in combination with soft
and hard sticks.
3. Hard pastels: These have a higher portion of binder and less pigment, producing a sharp
drawing material that is useful for fine details. These can be used with other pastels for drawing
outlines and adding accents. Hard pastels are traditionally used to create the preliminary
sketching out of a composition.[3] However, the colors are less brilliant and are available in a
restricted range in contrast to soft pastels.
4. Pastel pencils: These are pencils with a pastel lead. They are useful for adding fine details.

In addition, pastels using a different approach to manufacture have been developed:

5. Oil pastels: These have a soft, buttery consistency and intense colors. They are dense and fill the
grain of paper and are slightly more difficult to blend than soft pastels, but do not require a
fixative. They may be spread across the work surface by thinning with turpentine.[4]
6. Water-soluble pastels: These are similar to soft pastels, but contain a water-soluble component,
such as Polyethylene glycol. This allows the colors to be thinned out to an even, semi-
transparent consistency using a water wash. Water-soluble pastels are made in a restricted
range of hues in strong colors. They have the advantages of enabling easy blending and mixing
of the hues, given their fluidity, as well as allowing a range of color tint effects depending upon
the amount of water applied with a brush to the working surface.

There has been some debate within art societies as to what exactly counts as a pastel. The Pastel Society
within the UK (the oldest pastel society) states the following are acceptable media for its exhibitions:
"Pastels, including Oil pastel, Charcoal, Pencil, Conté, Sanguine, or any dry media". The emphasis
appears to be on "dry media" but the debate continues.

Pastel supports

Pastel supports need to provide a "tooth" for the pastel to adhere and hold the pigment in place.
Supports include:

1. laid paper (e.g. Ingres, Canson Mi Teintes)

2. abrasive supports (e.g. with a surface of finely ground pumice, marble dust, or rottenstone)
3. velour paper (e.g. Hannemühle Pastellpapier Velour) suitable for use with soft pastels is a
composite of synthetic fibers attached to acid-free backing [5][6]
Pastel art in art history

The manufacture of pastels originated in the 15th century.[9] The pastel medium was mentioned by
Leonardo da Vinci, who learned of it from the French artist Jean Perréal after that artist's arrival in Milan
in 1499.[9] Pastel was sometimes used as a medium for preparatory studies by 16th-century artists,
notably Federico Barocci. The first French artist to specialize in pastel portraits was Joseph Vivien.

During the 18th century the medium became fashionable for portrait painting, sometimes in a mixed
technique with gouache. Pastel was an important medium for artists such as Jean-Baptiste Perronneau,
Maurice Quentin de La Tour (who never painted in oils),[10] and Rosalba Carriera. The pastel still life
paintings and portraits of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin are much admired, as are the works of the
Swiss-French artist Jean-Étienne Liotard. In 18th-century England the outstanding practitioner was John
Russell. In Colonial America, John Singleton Copley used pastel occasionally for portraits.

In France, pastel briefly became unpopular during and after the Revolution, as the medium was
identified with the frivolity of the Ancien Régime.[11] By the mid-19th century, French artists such as
Eugène Delacroix and especially Jean-François Millet were again making significant use of pastel.[11]
Their countryman Édouard Manet painted a number of portraits in pastel on canvas, an unconventional
ground for the medium. Edgar Degas was an innovator in pastel technique, and used it with an almost
expressionist vigor after about 1885, when it became his primary medium.[11] Odilon Redon produced a
large body of works in pastel.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler produced a quantity of pastels around 1880, including a body of work
relating to Venice, and this probably contributed to a growing enthusiasm for the medium in the United
States.[12] In particular, he demonstrated how few strokes were required to evoke a place or an
atmosphere. Mary Cassatt, an American artist active in France, introduced the Impressionists and pastel
to her friends in Philadelphia and Washington.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Time Line of Art History: Nineteenth Century American
Drawings:
[Among American artists] by far the most graphic and, at the same time, most painterly wielding of
pastel was Cassatt's in Europe, where she had worked closely in the medium with her mentor Edgar
Degas and vigorously captured familial moments such as the one revealed in Mother Playing with Child.

On the East Coast of the United States, the Society of Painters in Pastel was founded in 1883 by William
Merritt Chase, Robert Blum, and others.[13] The Pastellists, led by Leon Dabo, was organized in New
York in late 1910 and included among its ranks Everett Shinn and Arthur Bowen Davies. On the American
West Coast the influential artist and teacher Pedro Joseph de Lemos, who served as Chief Administrator
of the San Francisco Art Institute and Director of the Stanford University Museum and Art Gallery,
popularized pastels in regional exhibitions.[14] Beginning in 1919 de Lemos published a series of articles
on “painting” with pastels, which included such notable innovations as allowing the intensity of light on
the subject to determine the distinct color of laid paper and the use of special optics for making “night
sketches” in both urban and rural settings.[15] His night scenes, which were often called “dreamscapes”
in the press, were influenced by French Symbolism, and especially Odilon Redon.

Pastels have been favored by many modern artists because of the medium's broad range of bright
colors. Modern notable artists who have worked extensively in pastels include Fernando Botero,
Francesco Clemente, Daniel Greene, Wolf Kahn, and R. B. Kitaj.

Oil pastel (also called wax oil crayon) is a painting and drawing medium with characteristics similar to
pastels and wax crayons. Unlike "soft" or "Japanese" pastel sticks, which are made with a gum or methyl
cellulose binder, oil pastels consist of pigment mixed with a non-drying oil and wax binder. The surface
of an oil pastel painting is therefore less powdery, but more difficult to protect with a fixative. Oil pastels
provide a harder edge than "soft" or "French" pastels but are more difficult to blend.

Techniques

A pastel frottage created by rubbing pastel on paper laid over stone

On the Cliff by Theodore Robinson, 1887. A warm beige paper is used as a colored ground to enhance
the pink colors. The rough textured ground provided by the paper also enhances the impressionistic
style of the pastel work.
Pastel techniques can be challenging since the medium is mixed and blended directly on the working
surface, and unlike paint, colors cannot be tested on a palette before applying to the surface. Pastel
errors cannot be covered the way a paint error can be painted out. Experimentation with the pastel
medium on a small scale in order to learn various techniques gives the user a better command over a
larger composition.[7]

Pastels have some techniques in common with painting, such as blending, masking, building up layers of
color, adding accents and highlighting, and shading. Some techniques are characteristic of both pastels
and sketching mediums such as charcoal and lead, for example, hatching and crosshatching, and
gradation. Other techniques are particular to the pastel medium.

Health and safety hazardsColored grounds: the use of a colored working surface to produce an effect
such as a softening of the pastel hues, or a contrast

1. Dry wash: coverage of a large area using the broad side of the pastel stick. A cotton ball, paper
towel, or brush may be used to spread the pigment more thinly and evenly.
2. Erasure: lifting of pigment from an area using a kneaded eraser or other tool
3. Feathering
4. Frottage
5. Impasto: pastel applied thickly enough to produce a discernible texture or relief
6. Pouncing
7. Resist techniques
8. Scraping out
9. Scumbling
10. Sfumato
11. Sgraffito
12. Stippling
13. Textured grounds: the use of coarse or smooth paper texture to create an effect, a technique
also often used in watercolor painting

Pastels are a dry medium and produce a great deal of dust, which can cause respiratory irritation. More
seriously, pastels use the same pigments as artists' paints, many of which are toxic. For example,
exposure to cadmium pigments, which are common and popular bright yellows, oranges, and reds, can
lead to cadmium poisoning. Pastel artists, who use the pigments without a strong painting binder, are
especially susceptible to such poisoning. For this reason, many modern pastels are made using
substitutions for cadmium, chromium, and other toxic pigments, while retaining the traditional pigment
names.[8]
Some Brilliant Examples of work done with pastels:

Edgar Degas

La Toilette (Nude Arranging Her Hair) (1884-86)

La Toilette is typical of Degas's many nudes, and typical of an approach to the nude that made this body
of work particularly controversial - both among his contemporaries and among latter day critics. It
demonstrates his tendency to capture the figure from behind, while washing; to show only a fragment
of the figure in order to suggest the whole; and to place the figure in shallow space, allowing her
contours to produce the strong linear design that balances the picture. Critics attacked his nudes for
never having distinct faces, and seemingly to be wiping themselves as if they are not clean. As if Degas
depersonalized his subjects.

Degas's interest in the nude might have been encouraged by his academic training, though his posing
suggests the modern innovations of the Realists and Impressionists. Indeed when Degas exhibited a
suite of pastel nudes such as this at the sixth Impressionist exhibition of 1886, critics attacked their
unusual posing. The picture also demonstrates the artist's use of pastel, which he usually painted on
tracing paper - the paper allowing him to produce numerous sketches that are easily manipulated
accross his many studies of form.
Jean-Baptiste Perronneau

Portrait of Laurent Cars, French Engraver (1745)

John Russell
Mrs. Robert Shurlock and Her Daughter Ann
 Sanguine
Sanguine (/ˈsæŋɡwɪn/) or red chalk is chalk of a reddish-brown colour, so called
because it resembles the colour of dried blood. It has been popular for centuries for
drawing (where white chalk only works on coloured paper). The word comes via French
from the Italian sanguigna and originally from the Latin "sanguis".

Technique

Sanguine lends itself naturally to sketches, life drawings, and rustic scenes. It is ideal
for rendering modeling and volume, and human flesh. In the form of wood-cased pencils
and manufactured sticks, sanguine may be used similarly to charcoal and pastel. As
with pastel, a mid-toned paper may be put to good use. A fixative may be applied to
preserve the finished state of the drawing. The pigment used in sanguine sticks comes
from red earths such as red ochre.[1] Sanguines are also available in several other
tones such as orange, tan, brown, beige.

Some of the popular works in Sanguine

Michelangelo
Albertina, Vienna:
Peter paul rubens

Portrait Of Nicolaas Rubens

Charles Le Brun

tudy for Mucius Scaevola Before Porsenna