Hampstead Art Gallery

Everything you wanted to know…

         but were afraid to ask

 about ART

MEDIUMS

Paints

Acrylic:  Uses a man-made resin pigment suspended in a liquid that dries to form a hard coating. Drying quickly, it must be used in a short time and once dry cannot
be manipulated further. Water-soluble and requires only soap and water for cleanup.

Oil:  Until the nineteenth century, if you wanted to paint with oils, you had to
acquire the basic pigments and grind them down to a powder, before mixing
them with oils and additives. Still made from natural product from the earth,
now the pigments are already mixed in tubes. Cleanup is with turpentine or
other low-odor thinner and varnished to protect the colors and surface of
the piece. Oil has a long drying time, therefore allowing artists to anipulate
the medium for an extended amount of time.

Watercolor:  Uses a dry coloring material or powder mixed with water to produce paint pigment and applied usually in transparent layers. A ‘gouache’ is an opaque watercolor in a gum-based
medium.

Pen & Ink

Pen ink is used to create very detailed drawings using lines and shading
techniques, such as crosshatch, stipple
and continuous line drawing.

Styles of Prints

Giclee:  is French meaning ‘to spatter out.” This procedure scans the picture/painting and prints out an accurately detailed copy in very high resolution. Done right, with archival quality inks on 100 lb. paper, these prints of paintings can last up to 200 years with no degradation. With the result making it almost impossible to tell the difference between the original and the print, giclees are higher priced than normal prints, but not as expensive as the original paintings. 

Photograph:  Chemical process used to put images on photosensitive paper. Photos can also be made into giclee prints to retain the image with no degradation. Giclee photographic prints are difficult to tell the difference from the original photograph, even under a magnifying glass.

Lithograph:  Print made through the process of lithography, where a flat surface (stone or metal plates) is treated to absorb or repel ink in order to achieve the desired pattern. Dating back to 1798, it is based on the principle that oil and water do not mix. Most commonly used today, the ‘offset’ method ultimately placed the ink on a rubber-coated cylinder pressed to paper.

Mounting Styles

Stretched Canvas

Canvas material stretched on a frame and stapled. Gesso, white or clear, is needed as a base to coat the canvas before paint can be applied. This process allows paint to ‘slide’ over the canvas as needed, instead of soaking into the normally porous material.

Hardbacked Canvas

Canvas material pressed/applied on a hard board backing and primed with gesso. Once primed, it can be painted in the manner of canvas. Artists tend to have preferences of either canvas or hardboard painting bases.

Paper

Watercolor (Hot and Cold Pressed):  Used mostly for watercolor techniques, there are many sizes, colors, textures and weights (60-1200 lb.)—weight referring to the weight of a 500-sheet ream of the paper. All rag cotton and acid free is best. Cold-pressed tends to have more texture, even distinctly ‘rough.’

Charcoal:  In charcoal paper you look for its ‘holding’ properties. This key is referred to as the ‘tooth’—the rough-textured surface that drags the particles from the stick or pencil and holds them to the surface of the paper. Some papers are very rough, while some are smooth like velvet. It depends on personal taste and/or artistic application.

Multi-purpose:  Usually carries a fairly smooth surface with a slight texture. A general medium for charcoal, pencil and pastels, multi-purpose is sometimes used when the subject of the piece does not necessarily call for a specific level of texture.

Compliments of

Hampstead Art Gallery

www.hampsteadartgallery.com

910-270-5180