Art Techniques

Impasto



The word "impasto" is actually an italian word which means "dough" or "mixture". This style of style of painting refers to a style by which paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting knife strokes are obvious.

Italian usage of "impasto" includes both a painting and a potting technique. According to Webster's New World College Dictionary, the root noun of impasto is pasta, whose primary meaning in Italian is paste.

Oil paint is most suitable to the impasto painting technique, due to its thickness and slow drying time. This enables the artists to have sufficient time to manipulate the paint to his desired style. Acrylic paint can also be impastoed. Impasto is generally not possible in watercolour or tempera without the addition of thickening media such as Aquapasto™, due to the inherent thinness of these media.

Impastoed paint serves several purposes. Firstly, it makes the light reflect in a particular way, giving the artist additional control over the play of light on the painting. Secondly, it can add expressiveness to the painting, the viewer being able to notice the strength and speed applied by the artist. Third, impasto can push a painting into a three dimensional sculptural rendering. The first objective was originally sought by masters such as Rembrandt and Titian, to represent folds in clothes or jewels: it was then juxtaposed with more delicate painting.

Much later, the French impressionists created entire canvases of rich impasto textures. Vincent van Gogh used it frequently for aesthetics and expression. Abstract expressionists such as Hans Hofmann and Willem De Kooning also made extensive use of it, motivated in part by a desire to create paintings which dramatically record the "action" of painting itself.

Still more recently, Frank Auerbach has used such heavy impasto that some of his paintings become almost three-dimensional.

Because impasto gives texture to the painting, it can be opposed to flat, smooth, or blending techniques.

Some artist include Montecelli and Aja

Mixed Media



Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium ( or technique ) has been employed.

There is an important distinction between "mixed media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct visual art media. For example, a work on paper or canvas that combines paint, ink, and collage could properly be called a "mixed media" work - but not a work of "multimedia art." The term multimedia art implies a wider scope than mixed media, combining visual art with non-visual elements (such as recorded audio, video) or with elements of the other arts (such as literature, drama, dance, motion graphics, music, or interactivity).

When creating a painted or drawn work using mixed media it is important to choose the layers carefully and allow enough drying time between the layers to ensure the final work will have integrity. If many different media are used it is equally important to choose a sturdy foundation upon which the different layers are imposed.

An old rule good to remember is "Fat over lean." In other words, don't start with oil paints. Plan to make them the final layer.

Many interesting effects can be achieved by using mixed media. Often, found objects are used in conjunction with traditional artist mediums, such as paints and graphite, to express a meaning in the everyday life. In this manner, many different elements of art become more flexible than with traditional artist mediums.

Some famous mixed media artists include Miriam Schapiro, Dieter Roth and Lorne Beug