It is all about the Paint Medium
The knows of painting Mediums can be endless in the ARTs when it comes to selecting materials to use in your art pieces. It goes back centuries throughout the world. There are many Techniques of using each medium as well, that takes the ordinary and becomes extraordinary. We will dip into some different types of mediums… you may even recognize a few of them.
In the past, some mediums were more prominent and largely used in well known painters masterpieces. As time goes on, we started to hone into the endless possibilities and even mixed mediums have been utilized to transform a single piece.
What are Paint Mediums?
The question isn’t that simple however, One way we can describe art by it medium use, is as painting, drawing, sculpture, print, etc.
Then you could go as far as describing the types of materials that artists use as well as the type of paint used. For example, the medium of oil paint or vastly known acrylic paint. There is plenty of option beyond those as well that we will discuss along the way. Once a medium or mediums have been selected for the piece, the artist ability and knowledge can use techniques to incorporate it.
Let’s dive into the Acrylic Paints for a few, Acrylic paint is one of the most popular paint mediums and easy to use, particularly with beginners, mostly for its easy use. Most paint brushes work with Acrylic paints as well, making it quite accessible and very quick clean up. Though there are lots of benefits of the use of Acrylic Paints, there are some cons. One of them is the pigment can appear less brilliant. Fortunately, there are a some helpful tips around this. Adding acrylic paint mediums to your basic paints can make them thicker, change the texture, and brighten the end results. In most art stores, they also have mediums you can add to your acrylic paint, fore example being gel, thickner etc.
So if your are a beginner, I highly suggest the Acrylics and fiddling with it and the additives.
Now, as any painting can express movement and stillness, Watercolor has its own abilities and advantages. Watercolor medium does require particular paper medium due to its long drying time and water base. This also provides the artist ability to move colors across the art. Absorbing the bright paper or canvas and mixing colors as you illustrate your piece. However, unlike acrylic be aware… patience is key because of the paint ability to easily bleed and run into unwanted parts of your painting.
Like history tells us, Oil Medium was vastly used in history, and probably for flexibility to it takes ays to weeks even to dry, Giving the artist time to influence the art before finishing and appreciated for it rich colors. However, it can crack, but does add a unique texture as well. The paint is versatile and can also be mixed with other mediums as well to achieve different results.
For some, Gouache paints is popularly used for its opaqueness and it matted finish. Though it isn’t watercolor, a little water can give a nice gradient to the art. Just keep in mind, it tends to take on underlaying colors as you reapply colors on top of. I like the opaque ability and uses personally on darker or transparent mediums to pop out and it lack of gloss.
When we take these facts and learn the techniques of each, it easy to see where it might take us in the painting journey. Play with the colors a the texturing that can be done with your art. Even mixing the mediums can make a huge difference in the outcome as you can see by their advantages and disadvantages. Like any artist, you start with an empty canvas/paper/etc…. and the end is for you to create.
So I invite you to paint your next piece with us. We visit many places near by and you can pick up a paintbrush with help from our artist and learn techniques.
