Saint Louis College

City of San Fernado

College of Engineering
and Architecture

GE 09
ART APPRECIATION

THE MEDUIM
OF VISUAL
ARTS
BOCO, ANDRE ANTONIO V.
ARCH. RANIELLE FUNESTO
Watercolor

In fine art painting, the term 'Watercolour' denotes a painting medium in

which colour pigments are bound in water-soluble agents. Originally, these binders
were animal glues or certain sugars, but nowadays the standard substance is gum
arabic. A variety of additives can be used (eg. honey, glycerin) to increase plasticity
and create other effects. Watercolours are generally applied by sable or squirrel-
hair brushes onto white tinted paper or card, although supports can encompass
canvas, leather, and papyrus. In China and Japan, watercolour art (known as brush
or scroll painting, or ink and wash) is the universal painting medium, except that
East Asian watercolourists typically use only black inks. Watercolour dries much
faster than oil painting and permits the creation of finer, more precise works of art.
However, regular exposure to light causes colour to fade, and many masterpieces -
including several examples of landscape painting by JMW Turner (1775–1851) -
have suffered irreparable damage.

Fresco

The art term Fresco (Italian for 'fresh') describes the method of painting in
which colour pigments are mixed solely with water (no binding agent used) and
then applied directly onto freshly laid lime-plaster ground (surface).

The surface is typically a plastered wall or ceiling. The liquid paint is absorbed by
the plaster and as the plaster dries the pigments are retained in the wall. Before
paint was applied, the artist usually made a preparatory drawing (sinopia) in red
chalk.

Tempra

Tempera (also called egg tempera) was a method of painting that

superceded the encaustic painting method, only to be itself replaced by oil painting.
Its name stems from the Latin word temperare, meaning 'to mix in proportion'.
Unlike encaustic paints which contain beeswax to bind the colour pigments, or oil
paints which use oils, tempera employs an emulsion of water, egg yolks or whole
eggs (occasionally with a little glue, honey or milk).

Pastel
 In fine art, the term 'pastels' refers to sticks of colour made from powdered
pigment bound with resin or gum. The name derives from the word pastello
(Italian), meaning little bread roll.

Developed in the mid-16th century from coloured chalks used for drawing, pastels
first became popular with portrait artists in the 18th century, for their soft
atmospheric effects. Typically, pastel is applied dry to paper, allowing the artist to
apply colour to a composition from the very beginning, without preparatory line and
tonal preparation.

Encaustic

In fine art, the word "encaustic" describes both the paint and painting
technique which uses hot beeswax to bind colour pigments and to facilitate their
application to a surface. An invention of Greek art, its name derives from the Greek
word meaning "burnt in". The paint is applied to the painting surface (usually a
wooden panel, or a wall), after which it is reheated to fuse the paint into a uniform
enamel-like finish, devoid of all brushmarks. Ancient artists applied the paint using
brushes and spatulas to create the image. On completion, they applied a flaming
torch to the painting's surface to reheat the wax, causing it to meld permanently
with the pigments and with the panel/wall. Nowadays, heat lamps, heat guns or
even electric irons are used to create the same effect. These modern tools give the
painter more time to work with the material. The most straightforward encaustic
recipe involves adding pigments to beeswax, but other types of waxes and resins
can also be used.

Stencil

in the visual arts, a technique for reproducing designs by passing ink or paint
over holes cut in cardboard or metal onto the surface to be decorated. Stencils
were known in China as early as the 8th century, and Eskimo in Baffin Island were
making prints from stencils cut in sealskins before their contact with Western
civilization. In the 20th century stencils are used for such diverse purposes as
making mimeographs and fine paintings. The Pop-art paintings of the 20th-century
American artist Roy Lichtenstein, for example, simulated the dots characteristic of
the halftone process of comic-book illustrations by painting over evenly distributed
perforations in a thin sheet of metal.
Oil

In its simplest form, oil paint is a mixture of three things: pigment, binder
and thinner. Pigment is the colour element, while the binder (the oil) is the liquid
vehicle or carrier which holds the ground-up pigment to be applied to the canvas or
whatever support is to be painted.

A thinner is usually added to the viscous pigment-oil mixture to make it

easier to apply with a brush. Thus for example, one of the simplest oil paints might
contain a mixture of red iron oxide (the pigment), linseed oil (the binder) and
turpentine (the thinner). Oil paint may also contain a number of other additives, to
promote drying, appearance and other actions.

Arcylic

Acrylics appeared in the 1940s and have been adopted by many modern
painters, in all painting genres, for their fast drying qualities and permanence.
Because, while oil paint remains the dominant medium, its slow-drying and lack of
permanence (museum curators do not consider an oil painting to be fully dry for
over 50 years) can be exceptionally frustrating for professional artists.

In addition to being quick-drying, acrylic paint is also extremely versatile. For

example, it can be used for a multiplicity of fine art painting styles. Also, like
watercolour, it can be applied in the thinnest of glazes, or like oils, it can be applied
more thickly in layers, or even impasto direct from the tube. Moreover,
improvements to the quality and range of available acrylic pigments have greatly
enhanced the richness and tonality achieveable. Lastly, unlike oil paint, it doesn't
crack, and unlike watercolours it doesn't fade.
Mosaic

Mosaic is the decorative art of creating pictures and patterns on a surface by

setting small coloured pieces of glass, marble or other materials in a bed of cement,
plaster or adhesive. Employed as a form of interior or exterior decoration, and
originally developed in ancient Greece, mosaics were developed extensively by
Roman craftsmen, mostly in the form of pavements. Later, during the era of
Byzantine art, artists specialized in creating mosaic designs for walls, and were
renowned for their shimmering masterpieces of gold and multi-coloured glass. As a
form of ornamental Christian art, mosaic was superceded during Renaissance times
by fresco painting. A revival of sorts occurred in the 19th century when many public
buildings were decorated with mosaics (eg. Westminster Catholic Cathedral),
usually of mass produced ceramic tile or glass tesserae. Certain design styles, such
as Gothic Revival and Art Nouveau provided new designs and uses for the art form.

Stained Glass

In visual art, the term 'stained glass' commonly denotes glass to which
translucent colour has been added during manufacture: a process which reached its
apogee in Gothic architecture, in the pictorial narrative windows of the great
Christian cathedrals such as Chartres, Reims and Notre Dame de Paris. (See also
English Gothic architecture 1180-1520.) Indeed, the craftsmanship of the stained
glass artists who created such medieval masterpieces as the Rose window in the
west front of Chartres Cathedral has rarely been equalled, an extraordinary
situation given that stained glass manufacture is now easier, and that essential
materials like sand, limestone and sodium - as well as metallic oxide colouring
agents like copper, cobalt, iron, nickel and lead - are more readily available.
Modern knowledge of stained glass chemistry is also far superior. As well as church
windows, the term also encompasses the creation of other types of stained glass,
including panels, domestic windows as well as three-dimensional shapes and
sculpture.
Tapestry

Tapestry is an ancient form of textile art which has been practised all over
the world for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians and the Incas used woven
tapestries as shrouds in which to bury their dead. The Greeks and Romans used
them as wall-coverings for civic buildings and temples like the Parthenon. The
Chinese rarely used them as wall-hangings - preferring instead to use them mainly
to decorate garments and for wrapping gifts.

Drawing

In fine art, the term "drawing" may be defined as the linear realization of visual
objects, concepts, emotions, and fantasies, including symbols and even abstract
forms. Drawing is a graphic art which is characterized by an emphasis on form or
shape, rather than mass and colour as in painting. Drawing is quite different from
graphic printmaking processes, because although a drawing may form the basis for
replication, it is by its very nature, unique.

 Pencil

The common pencil (the word derives from the latin 'peniculus' meaning brush),
used by draughtsmen around the world, is the most immediate and sensitive of the
drawing media, being as capable of producing a quick sketch or a finely worked
drawing. Pencil marks vary according to the hardness of the graphite lead in the
shaft. The harder the lead (and the sharper the tip) the finer the line. Pencils are a
dry medium, in contrast to pens which apply liquids.

 Pen and Ink

In fine art, the term 'pen and ink' denotes a drawing technique involving the use
of black and other coloured inks which are applied to a support (generally paper)
with either a dip pen or a reservoir pen. This traditional, versatile media has been
used by Western artists since ancient-Egyptian times, for sketches, finished
drawings or ink and wash paintings.
  Charcoal

Charcoal is one of the oldest drawing media - see, for instance, the ancient
Nawarla Gabarnmang charcoal drawing (26,000 BCE) - and is commonly used by
artists even today, in stick or compressed powder form. The sticks are usually
made from twigs of willow (or linden wood) which are subjected to a slow-burning
process that reduces the wood to carbon. Sticks come in varying thickness ranging
from the very thick (used by scene painters), to medium and thin sticks (used for
more detailed drawings). Bamboo charcoal is the main media employed by
Japanese Sumi-e artists, (note: Sumi-e actually means charcoal drawing).

Bistre

Bistre, brown pigment made from boiling the soot of wood. Because bistre is
transparent and has no body, it is frequently used in conjunction with pen and ink
drawings as a wash, a liquid spread evenly to suggest shadows, and is especially
associated with the appearance of the typical “old master drawing.”

It was used to its greatest effect in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the
bistre wash was especially favoured by such artists as Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain,
Alexander Cozens, and Thomas Gainsborough. The pigment is also used by
miniaturists.

Crayons

Invented by the Frenchman Nicolas-Jacques Conte, the same man who

invented the modern lead pencil in the 18th century, conte crayons - a popular
medium for sketching and more formal drawing - are made from pigment and
graphite held together with a gum binder and grease. Resembling pastels in
appearance and consistency, they are slightly harder and more oily. Conte crayon
comes in square sticks and pencils.
Silverpoint

A method of drawing that was popular during the 15th and 16th centuries. A
silver-tipped stylus is used on a paper that has been given a slightly abrasive
surface. One way to achieve this is to grind up calcined bones and mix them with a
gum and water, and brush over the sheet of paper. When the drawing is actually
being made the silver point leaves only a very faint grey line; later with exposure to
the air the minute particles of deposited silver tarnish leaving an attractive warm
sepia tone. Albrecht Durer used silver point for a self-portrait in 1484 when he was
13..

Printmaking

The fine art of printmaking is concerned with the production of images by

varying methods of replication onto paper, parchment, fabric or other supports. The
resulting fine prints (impressions), while not 'original' in the sense of a fine art
painting or drawing, are considered nevertheless to be works of art in their own
right, even though they exist in multiples. It remains to be seen whether the latest
fine printing techniques alter this assessment.

Printmaking, which encompasses woodcuts, engraving, etching, mezzotint,

aquatint, drypoint, lithography, screen-printing, digital prints and foil imaging is
often a core component of fine-arts training courses, and today's printmakers are
grounded in most of these print methods.

Woodcut
 Woodcut, the oldest technique used in fine art printmaking, is a form of relief
printing. The artist's design or drawing is made on a piece of wood (usually
beechwood), and the untouched areas are then cut away with gouges, leaving the
raised image which is then inked. Woodcut prints are produced by pressing the
selected medium (usually paper) onto the inked image. If colour is used, separate
wood blocks are required. Woodcut printing is sometimes referred to as xylography
or a xylographic process (from the Greek words 'xulon' for wood and 'graphikos for
writing/drawing), although these terms are commonly reserved for text prints.

Engraving

This fine-art intaglio printmaking process, derived from goldsmith engraving

techniques, dates from pioneering work by Northern Renaissance German printers
during the first half of the 15th century. Engraving involves the incision of a design
onto a metal surface (usually copper), by making grooves using a steel tool with a
square or diamond-shaped end, called a burin. This produces a high quality line
with a clean edge. Other tools - like mezzotint rockers, roulets and burnishers - are
employed by the printmaker to create additional textured effects.

Relief

In plastic art, relief sculpture is any work which projects from but which
belongs to the wall, or other type of background surface, on which it is carved.
Reliefs are traditionally classified according to how high the figures project from the
background. Also known as relievo, relief sculpture is a combination of the two-
dimensional pictorial arts and the three-dimensional sculptural arts. Thus a relief,
like a picture, is dependent on a background surface and its composition must be
extended in a plane in order to be visible. Yet at the same time a relief also has a
degree of real three-dimensionality, just like a proper sculpture.
Intaglio

Intaglio describes any printmaking technique in which the image is produced

by incising into the printing plate – the incised line or area holds the ink and creates
the image. Lines and areas that are sunk into the plate to take the ink as opposed
to relief where the printing areas are left upstanding.

REFERENCE

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/watercolour-painting.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/painting/fresco.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/painting/tempera.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/drawing/pastel-drawings.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/painting/encaustic.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/oil-painting.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/acrylic-painting.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/mosaic-art.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/stained-glass-art.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/tapestry-art.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/drawing.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/drawing/pencil-drawings.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/drawing/pen-and-ink-drawings.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/drawing/charcoal-drawings.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/drawing/conte-crayon-drawings.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/printmaking.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/printmaking/woodcuts.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/printmaking/engraving.htm

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/sculpture/relief.htm