Painting’s techniques

If to speak about techniques, we should start with fresco painting. Fresco painting is a technique in which the artists paint on a plastered wall while the plaster is still damp. Fresco painting is especially well suited to decorating large walls in churches, government buildings, and palaces. A fresco, unlike many other painting techniques, has no glossy shining. A shine would make a fresco difficult to see from certain angels. Fresco painting reached its greatest popularity from the 1200’s through the 1500’s. Italy was the center of fresco painting during that period. Leading fresco painters included Giotto, Andrea Mantegna, Masaccio, and Michelangelo.

Water color painting can be done in two major techniques, transparent water color and gouache. Transparent water colors are paints made of pigments combined with a gum-Arabic binder. An artist using this technique lightens the color by adding water to them. In most other techniques, the artist adds white paint to lighten colors. The viewer can see the support through a layer of transparent water color. Gouache paint is also made with a gum arable binder. But during the manufacturing process, a little white pigment or chalk is added to make the paint opaque. Opaque means that the viewer cannot see through a layer of the color. An artist using the gouache technique makes the color lighter by adding white paint to them. Water color paints had been used to decorate walls and ornamental objects in ancient Egypt and Asia, and in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Pastels are colored chalk sticks. They are made of pigment and a small amount of weak adhesive. Many artists who draw especially well like to work in pastel because they can use the stick like a pencil while producing brilliant effects of color. Outstanding French artists of the 1800's, including Edouard Manet, Jean Francais Millet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir, often worked in pastel.

Tempera is a technique in which egg yolk is used as the binder. Most egg tempera paintings are done on wood. Tempera dries quickly, and so the brushstrokes do not blend easily. In a tempera painting, most shapes are sharp and clear. Tones are bright, and details are exact and strong. Beautiful tempera pictures were painted during the 1200's and 1300's in Siena, Italy, by Duccio di Buoninsegna and Simone Martini.

Oil paint is made by mixing powdered pigments with a binder of vegetable oil. Linseed oil is the most common binder. Certain features of oil paint make it popular with artists who want to show the natural appearance of the world around them. Oil paint – even when applied thickly – does not crack so easily as does water paint or egg tempera. As a result, the painter can apply oil paint in varying thicknesses to produce a wide range of textures. Oil painting first became popular in Europe during the 1500's. By the 1700's it had become the most common painting technique. It remains the technique preferred by many artists today.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 903