Key Concepts:
Painting Media
• Encaustic
• Fresco
• Tempera
• Oil Painting
• Watercolor
• Gouache
• Synthetic Media
Key Terms:
paint – a fluid or pasty coating material consisting of three components: pigment, binder, and solvent.
pigments - The coloring agents of a medium.
binder - In a medium, the substance that holds pigments together.
solvent - A thinner that enables paint to flow more readily and that also cleans brushes; also called vehicle.
support - The surface on which the artist works--a wall, a panel of wood, a canvas, or a sheet of paper.
ground - A coating applied to a canvas to prepare it for painting.
gesso - A mixture of glue and either plaster or chalk used as a ground for painting.
encaustic – a painting medium in which pigments are mixed with a binder of hot wax.
fresco – a painting medium in which pigments are mixed with water and applied to plaster. True fresco, or buon fresco, involves applying paint to wet plaster. The paint chemically binds to the plaster becoming an integral part of the wall or support. In dry fresco, or fresco secco, paint is applied to dry plaster.
tempera - a painting medium made by combining water, pigment, and, usually, egg yolk.
trompe l'oeil - A form of representation that attempts to depict the object as if it were actually present before the eye in three-dimensional space; literally “deceit of the eye“ or “fool the eye.”
impasto - Paint applied very thickly to canvas or support.
glaze - In oil painting, a thin, transparent, or semitransparent layer put over a color, usually in order to give it a more luminous quality.
watercolor - a painting medium consisting of pigments suspended in a solution of water and gum arabic.
gouache - a painting medium similar to watercolor but opaque instead of transparent.
acrylic - A plastic resin that, when mixed with water and pigment, forms an inorganic and quick-drying paint medium. A kind of synthetic medium.
mixed media - The combination of two or more media in a single work
collage - A work made by pasting various scraps or pieces of material - cloth, paper, photographs - onto the surface of the composition