Painting !!

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface (support base). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other implements, such as knives, sponges and airbrushes can be used.

In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay, leaf, copper or concrete and may incorporate multiple other materials including sand, clay, paper, plaster, gold leaf as well as objects. Painting is a mode of creative expression and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture (as in gestural painting), composition, narration (as in narrative art), or abstraction (as in abstract art), among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in a still life or landscape painting), photographic, abstract, be loaded with narrative (as in expressionism) or be political in nature (as in Activism).

Painting Media:

Different types of paint are usually identified by the medium that the pigment is suspended or embedded in, which determines the general working characteristics of the paint, such as viscosity, miscibility, solubility, drying time etc.

Categories of paints:

1. Oil
2. Pastel
3. Acrylic
4. Watercolor
5. Ink
6. Hot Wax
7. Fresco
8. Gauche
9. Enamel
10. Spray paint
11. Tempera
12. Water miscible oil paint

1. Oil:

Oil Painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense: these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body and gloss. Oil paint eventually became the principle medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. The transition began with early Netherlands painting in northern Europe and by the hight of the Renaissance oil painting techniques had almost completely replaced tempera paints in the majority of Europe.

2. Pastel:

Pastel is a painting medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paint. The binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation. The color effect of pastel is closer to the natural dry pigments than that of any other process. Because the surface of the pastel painting is fragile and easily smudged, its preservation requires protective measures such as framing under glass; it may also be sprayed with a fixative. Nonetheless, when made with permanent pigments and properly cared for, a pastel painting may endure unchanged for centuries. Pastels are not susceptible, as are paintings made with a fluid medium, to the cracking and discoloration that result from changes in the color, opacity or dimensions of the medium as it dries.

3. Acrylic:

Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, media or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with other media. The main practical difference between most acrylics and oil paints is the inherent drying time.

4. Watercolor:

Watercolor is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water soluble vehicle. The traditional and most common support for watercolor painting is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood and canvas. In east Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns.

5. Ink:

Ink paintings are done with a liquid that contains pigments and or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text or design. Ink is used for drawing with a pen, brush or quill. Ink can be a complex medium, composed of solvents, dyes, resins, lubricants, solubility, surfactants, particulate matter, and other materials. The component of inks serve many purposes the ink career, colorants and other additives control flow and thickness of the ink and its appearance when dry.

6. Hot Wax:

En-caustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used. Metal tools and special brushes can be used to shape the paint before it cools, or heated metal tools can be used to manipulate the wax once it has cooled onto the surface.  

7. Fresco:

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word Fresco comes from the Italian word affresco, which derives from the Latin word for fresh. Buon-fresco technique consists of painting in pigment mixed with water on a thin layer of wet, fresh lime mortar or plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster, intonako is used.

8. Gouache:

Gouache is a water based paint consisting of pigment and other materials designed to be used in an opaque painting method. Gouache differs from watercolor in that the particles are larger, the ratio of pigment to water is much higher and an additional, inert, white pigment such as chalk is also present.

9. Enamel:

Enamels are made by painting a substrate, typically metal with fit a type of powdered glass. Minerals called color oxides provide coloration. After firing at a temperature of 750-850 degrees Celsius (1380-1560 degrees Fahrenheit), the result is a fused lamination of glass and metal. Enamels have a traditionally been used for decoration of precious objects, but have also been used for other purposes.

10. Spray Paint:

Aerosol paint also called spray paint is a type of paint that comes in a sealed pressurized container and is released in a fine spray mist when depressing a valve button. A form of spray painting aerosol paint leaves a smooth, evenly coated surface. Standard sized cans are portable, inexpensive and easy to store. Aerosol primer can be applied directly to bare metal and plastics.

11. Tempera:

Tempera also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium (usually a glutinous material such as egg yolk or some other size). Tempera paintings are very long lasting and examples from the first centuries AD still exist. Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting. A paint commonly called tempera (though it is not) consisting of pigment and glue size is commonly used and referred to by some manufacturers in America as poster paint.

12. Water Miscible oil paint:

Water miscible oil paints also called 'water soluble' or 'water-mixable' is a modern variety of oil paint engineered to be thinned and cleaned up with water, rather than having to use chemicals such as turpentine. It can be mixed and applied using the same techniques as traditional oil-based paint but while still wet it can be effectively removed from brushes, palettes and rags with ordinary soap and water. Its water solubility comes from the use of an oil medium in which one end of the molecule has been altered to bind loosely to water molecules, as in a solution.

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