Saint Louis College

City of San Fernado

College of Engineering
and Architecture

GE 09
ART APPRECIATION

THE MEDUIM
OF VISUAL
ARTS
SUDIACAL, ARVIN KENNETH
ARCH. RANIELLE FUNESTO
Watercolor

Watercolour, also spelled Watercolor, pigment ground in gum, usually gum

arabic, and applied with brush and water to a painting surface, usually paper; the
term also denotes a work of art executed in this medium. The pigment is ordinarily
transparent but can be made opaque by mixing with a whiting and in this form is
known as body colour, or gouache (q.v.); it can also be mixed with casein, a
phosphoprotein of milk.

Fresco

Buon’, or “true,” fresco is the most durable technique and consists of the
following process. Three successive coats of specially prepared plaster, sand, and
sometimes marble dust are troweled onto a wall. Each of the first two rough coats
is applied and then allowed to set (dry and harden). In the meantime, the artist,
who has made a full-scale cartoon (preparatory drawing) of the image that he
intends to paint, transfers the outlines of the design onto the wall from a tracing
made of the cartoon. The final, smooth coat (intonaco) of plaster is then troweled
onto as much of the wall as can be painted in one session. The boundaries of this
area are confined carefully along contour lines, so that the edges, or joints, of each
successive section of fresh plastering are imperceptible. The tracing is then held
against the fresh intonaco and lined up carefully with the adjacent sections of
painted wall, and its pertinent contours and interior lines are traced onto the fresh
plaster; this faint but accurate drawing serves as a guide for painting the image in
colour.

Tempera

Tempera painting, painting executed with pigment ground in a water-miscible

medium. The word tempera originally came from the verb temper, “to bring to a
desired consistency.” Dry pigments are made usable by “tempering” them with a
binding and adhesive vehicle. Such painting was distinguished from fresco painting,
the colours for which contained no binder. Eventually, after the rise of oil painting,
the word gained its present meaning.
Pastel

Pastel, dry drawing medium executed with fragile, finger-size sticks. These
drawing crayons, called pastels, are made of powdered pigments combined with a
minimum of nongreasy binder, usually gum tragacanth or, from the mid-20th
century, methyl cellulose. Made in a wide range of colour values, the darkest in
each hue consists of pure pigment and binder, the others having varying
admixtures of inert whites. Once the colours are applied to paper, they appear fresh
and bright. Because they do not change in colour value, the final effect can be seen
immediately. Pastel remains on the surface of the paper and thus can be easily
obliterated unless protected by glass or a fixative spray of glue size or gum
solution. Fixatives, however, have a disadvantage in that they tend to change the
tone and flatten the grain of pastel drawings. When pastel is applied in short
strokes or linearly, it is usually classed as drawing; when it is rubbed, smeared, and
blended to achieve painterly effects, it is often regarded as a painting medium.

Encaustic

Encaustic painting, painting technique in which pigments are mixed with hot
liquid wax. Artists can change the paint’s consistency by adding resin or oil (the
latter for use on canvas) to the wax. After the paint has been applied to the
support, which is usually made of wood, plaster, or canvas, a heating element is
passed over the surface until the individual brush or spatula marks fuse into a
uniform film. This “burning in” of the colours is an essential element of the true
encaustic technique.

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

Oil painting, painting in oil colours, a medium consisting of pigments

suspended in drying oils. The outstanding facility with which fusion of tones or
colour is achieved makes it unique among fluid painting mediums; at the same
time, satisfactory linear treatment and crisp effects are easily obtained. Opaque,
transparent, and translucent painting all lie within its range, and it is unsurpassed
for textural variation.

Arcylic

Acrylic painting, painting executed in the medium of synthetic acrylic resins.

Acrylics dry rapidly, serve as a vehicle for any kind of pigment, and are capable of
giving both the transparent brilliance of watercolour and the density of oil paint.
They are considered to be less affected by heat and other destructive forces than is
oil paint. They found favour among artists who were concerned about the health
risks posed by the handling of oil paints and the inhalation of fumes associated with
them. Because of all these desirable characteristics, acrylic paints became
immediately popular with artists when they were first commercially promoted in the
1960s. Notable 20th-century artists who used acrylic paint include Pop artists Andy
Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Op artist Bridget Riley, colour field artists Mark
Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly, and Barnett Newman, and British artist David Hockney.

Mosaic

Mosaic, in art, decoration of a surface with designs made up of closely set,

usually variously coloured, small pieces of material such as stone, mineral, glass,
tile, or shell. Unlike inlay, in which the pieces to be applied are set into a surface
that has been hollowed out to receive the design, mosaic pieces are applied onto a
surface that has been prepared with an adhesive. Mosaic also differs from inlay in
the size of its components. Mosaic pieces are anonymous fractions of the design
and rarely have the dimensions of pieces for intarsia work (fitted inlay usually of
wood), whose function is often the rendering of a whole portion of a figure or
pattern. Once disassembled, a mosaic cannot be reassembled on the basis of the
form of its individual pieces.

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.

TYPES OF DRAWING

 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

Crayon, an implement for drawing made from clay, chalk, plumbago, dry
colour, and wax. There are two types of crayons, the colouring crayon and the chalk
crayon.

The colouring crayon, or wax crayon, is the one used by most children in
making pictures, but artists also use it. It consists of waxes such as paraffin,
beeswax, and carnauba wax and dry colour. Some synthetic waxlike materials are
also used in the modern crayon. The waxes are melted and the dry colour added
with continuous mixing until thoroughly dispersed. Normally, the crayon is entirely
consumed during the marking process through abrasion.

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

Printmaking, an art form consisting of the production of images, usually on

paper but occasionally on fabric, parchment, plastic, or other support, by various
techniques of multiplication, under the direct supervision of or by the hand of the
artist. Such fine prints, as they are known collectively, are considered original
works of art, even though they can exist in multiples.

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

Engraving, technique of making prints from metal plates into which a design
has been incised with a cutting tool called a burin. Modern examples are almost
invariably made from copperplates, and, hence, the process is also called
copperplate engraving. Another term for the process, line engraving, derives from
the fact that this technique reproduces only linear marks. Tone and shading,
however, can be suggested by making parallel lines or crosshatching.

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.
Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/art/oil-painting

https://www.britannica.com/art/encaustic-painting

https://www.britannica.com/art/pastel-art

https://www.britannica.com/art/tempera-painting

https://www.britannica.com/art/fresco-painting

https://www.britannica.com/art/watercolor

https://www.britannica.com/art/printmaking

https://www.britannica.com/art/crayon

https://www.britannica.com/art/mosaic-art

https://www.britannica.com/art/acrylic-painting

https://www.britannica.com/art/stenciling

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