Paint Binders and Solvents

Paint is a fluid or pasty coating material consisting of three components: pigment, binder, and solvent.

Pigments used remain fairly consistent from media to media; however the binders and solvents vary.

Media	Binder	Solvent
Encaustic	hot wax	heat
Fresco *	plaster	water
Tempera	egg, egg yolk	water
Oil	linseed oil	turpentine, mineral spirits
Watercolor	gum arabic	water
Gouache	gum arabic	water
Acrylic	acrylic resin	water

* In reality this information concerning fresco is oversimplified.  It holds mostly true for buon fresco (wet fresco).  However, if you then ask what is the pigment for buon fresco then the answer would be paint.  And in fresco it is possible to use various types of paint (oil, tempera, gouache) and the paint would then have its own pigment, binder and solvent.

For fresco secco the plaster is already dry and so does not serve as a binder.  Instead the plaster is the support.  The binder and solvent varies with the type of paint (oil, tempera, gouache) that is applied on top of the dry plaster.