| Watercolours: |
Subdivided into Transparent and Gouache. Transparent watercolours are made from pigments and a Gum Arabic binder. Gouache paints are formulated as for transparent watercolours but with a little white pigment added to make the paint opaque. Watercolour paints have poor light fastness and will fade rapidly if exposed to direct sunlight. |
| Tempera: |
These paints are highly opaque watercolours with less expensive versions being popular in education for use by younger age groups and are often termed poster paints. However this name should strictly be reserved for paints where egg yolk has been used as the binder. |
| Oil Paints : |
Produced from a mixture of pigments and vegetable oil binder, generally being quite viscous. The artists will reduce the viscosity to suit his personal requirements by adding a solvent. The paints dry slowly and do not crack when applied in thick layers. The final work is varnished for protection but only after a long drying time, in the order of months, has allowed all solvent to evaporate from the paint layers. |
| Impasto: |
Not strictly a paint type but a technique where paint is applied thickly to the support such that it stands proud of the support surface. Acrylics are often used to produce impasto work. |
| Acrylic and Vinyl: |
The classification of these paints relates to the binders used and these man-made materials tend to produce 'user friendly' paints. They can reproduce the effects of egg tempera, fresco and oil paints and well as having their own unique effects. |
| Pastels: |
Here coloured chalk sticks made from pigment, mineral binder and a little weak adhesive such as gum tragacanth are rubbed against the paint support. Anyone criticising this as a simplistic procedure, should remember that the resulting pastel work comes the nearest of any paint media to the brilliance of the original pigments.
The final work will need protection from physical, friction damage by means of glass or spray-on fixer. |
| Fresco Painting: |
Here the paint is applied onto freshly applied plaster and suits large surfaces such as church naves, royal palaces. The final effect is matt so there are no confusing reflections when the work is viewed. Fresco was a highly popular technique in Italy from 1200 to 1500 AD. The plaster dries in around 8 hours. |
| Secco Painting : |
Is the same as the Fresco techniques but the paint is applied to dried plaster. |
| Encaustic Painting: |
A specialist procedure where melted beeswax is used as the binder, with pigments added, and is used hot. Cooled brushes need to be frequently changed for warm replacements. The finished work of art is warmed to blend the brush strokes into each other; this is termed ' burning in'.
The concept was used by the Greeks from 400AD to 800AD and was resurrected around 1800AD.
Should you attempt to commit your artistic efforts to canvas, but your work will just not come right and frustration is your main achievement, do persevere. It could be that a budding Vincent van Gogh is reading this, and the world record price for any painting is his portrait of Dr. Gachet which was sold by Christies in New York on May 15th 1990 for £ 44,378,696. That works out at £35 per square millimetre! Although the sad fact is that Van Gogh actually only sold one painting while he was alive. However since his death 22 of his paintings have been sold for more than £1million. Even this pales when compared to Pablo Picasso's works where 96 of his paintings have achieved more than £1million at sale. |
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