Thursday 29 December 2011

Miniature Painting

This miniature painting belongs to the Pahari style of the Himalayan foothills, a courtly style of the Raj put kings that flourished from the 17th to the 19th century.

Miniature Painting

This painting depicts the childhood days of Lord Krishna. Krishna is known in the stories of the Bhagavata-Purana as the 8th incarnation of the god Vishnu, destined to perform great deeds and remove the evils of the world. Shown in this Indian miniature watercolor painting as a child with grey-blue skin, he is a popular deity, a divine hero who personifies superhuman powers as well as human hopes and failings. Stories of Krishna's childhood with his loving foster-mother Yashoda in a village of cow-herds are much beloved and illustrated in paintings and sculpture.

Pahari Painting

Thursday 15 December 2011

Characteristics of Oil Paintings

Those days’ oil paints require oil in order to facilitate frenzy, stable and waterproof film. Such kind of oils is known as drying oils. The other name drying oil is siccative oil. These oils are distinguished by high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids. One of the most frequent measures for siccative or drying property of oils is the iodine amount and the number of grams of iodine captivated by one hundred grams of oil. 

Oil is said to be drying if the number of iodine is greater than 130. If the range of iodine lies in the range 115-130 then the oil is said to be semi-drying oil and those with an iodine number of less than 115 are considered to be non-drying. The most common medium for artists' oil paints is the Linseed oil (Drying oil).

We know that water gets evaporated when it is exposed to air but oil does not undergo the same. Instead of that they polymerise into a dry semisolid but the rate of process can vary depending on the oil.

The main advantage of using a slow-drying quality oil paint helps an artist to develop their painting slowly and gently. With oil-based paints an artist can improve or rework their paintings very easily. The only disadvantage with this oil painting is that it might take months or years to finish. 

Oil paints also blend well with each other, making delicate disparity of color as well as more easily generating the details of light and shadow. Oil paints can be diluted with turpentine or other tightening mediators in order to build a painting in layers, on the other hand, such agents are extremely combustible and the danger of a building fire was always present.

Tuesday 15 November 2011

American Painting

Much art of the American colonial period consisted of portraits, as settlers sought to establish their identities in a new world. After the new nation achieved its independence, landscapes and scenes of native flora, fauna, and folk customs began to express its unique qualities and illustrate its untapped resources.

Portraiture formed the mainstay of subject matter in colonial and federal American art, as immigrants to the New World attempted to bring a semblance of Old World civilization to their wild or, at best, provincial surroundings. When Benjamin West arrived in Rome in 1760, he was the first American artist to study in Europe. 

American Painting


Upon seeing the Vatican's famous classical statue, the Apollo Belvedere, West exclaimed, "My God! How like it is to a young Mohawk warrior!" His astute comparison between a "noble savage" and the "glory that was Greece" won hearty applause from the connoisseurs. West soon emerged as Europe's foremost history painter, dropping the allegorical trappings from classical antiquity that had been the norm and basing his work on historical research.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Acrylic painting

Acrylic paint is considered to be a quick drying coat which contains a color suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. These paints can be watered down, but it becomes water-resistant on drying. Depending on how much the paint is diluted or customized with acrylic gels, media, or pastes, the completed acrylic painting can look like a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own exclusive individuality not achievable with other media.

Acrylic painting



The primary acrylic paint was invented by Leonard Bocour and Sam Golden between 1946 and 1949 under the brand Magna paint. Water-based acrylic paints were consequently sold as "latex" house paints, although acrylic dispersion uses no latex derived from a rubber tree. Soon after the water-based acrylic folders were set up as house paints, artists and companies alike began to discover the prospective of the new binders. Water-soluble artists' acrylic paints became commercially available in the 1950s, offered by Liquitex, with high-viscosity paints parallel to those made today becoming available in the early 1960s. In 1963, Rowney was the first producer to commence an artist’s acrylic paint in Europe, under the brand name Cryla.

Acrylic artist paints may be watered down and used as washes in the way of watercolor paints, but the washes are not re-hydratable once it dried out. For this reason, acrylics do not lend themselves to color elating techniques as do gum arabic depends on watercolor paints.


These acrylic paints with surface shine or dull finishes are offered, although a satin sheen is most common and some brands display a variety of finish. As with oils, pigment quantity, and particle dimension or nature can naturally affect the paint sheen. Matting agents can also be inserted during the creation to dry the finish. The artist can combine media with their paints and use topcoats or varnishes to modify or unite sheen if desired.

Friday 23 September 2011

Contemporary Painting


Contemporary art can be described as an art produced at this near point in time or a fine art produced since World War II. It can sometimes seem to be odd with a public but still became a part of popular culture. 


This beautiful painting depicts a girl who is fearless, tough; innocence with goals and aspirations hides another world inside her soul. The inner world is being filled with full of pain, regrets, mistakes, and tremendous guilt wanting to die. What we see outside is pleasing but underneath can’t even begin to imagine.

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Watercolor Painting



Watercolor is also being called as aquarelle from French. It is defined as one of the painting method. A watercolor depicts the result of an artwork. It is a medium in which the paints are made of pigments floating in a water soluble medium. Paper remains as one of the conventional and most frequent sustain for watercolor paintings. The other may include are papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. 

Since water colors are transparent it allows the light to reflect from the exterior of the paper thus providing a luminous effect. Watercolor can also be finished solid by adding some Chinese white. In the region of East Asia “brush painting or scroll painting” is called so when watercolor painting mixes with ink. 

In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the leading medium, frequently in neutral black or browns.  In India, Ethiopia and other countries also have an elongated practice of this painting.Fingerpainting with watercolor paints were originated in China.

The four major ingredients o Watercolor paint is:
  • Pigments -  natural or artificial, mineral or organic;
  • Arabic gum - as a folder to hold the color in suspension and secure the pigment to the painting surface;
  • Additives  - like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives to change the thickness, thrashing, toughness or shade of the pigment and vehicle mixture;
  • Solvent - the material used to slender or weakens the paint for appliance and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Pahari Painting



The truthful significance of Pahari painting is a painting from the mountainous regions. The term pahar stands for the word mountain in Hindi. Pahari painting is an umbrella term used for a type of Indian painting. This unique type of painting begins from the Himalayan Hill kingdoms of North India, during 17th-19th century. Remarkably Basohli, Mankot, Nurpur, Chamba, Kangra, Gulley, Mandi, and Garhwal were done mostly in tiny forms.

Initially the Pahari School was urbanized and flourishes during 17th-19th centuries. It extends from Jammu to Almora and Garhwal, in the sub-Himalayan India, via Himachal Pradesh.Each creates stark variations within the type, varying from bold intense Basohli Painting that originates from Basohli in Jammu and Kashmir, to the delicate and lyrical Kangra paintings. This style was identical to the style before other schools of paintings developed, that reached its peak with paintings of Radha and Krishna, inspired by Jayadev's Gita Govinda.

This unique kind gave birth to a new language in Indian painting, and grew out of the Mughal painting, though this was supported mostly by the Raj put kings who ruled numerous parts of the county.

Tuesday 16 August 2011

Oil Painting


Oil painting is done with coloring pigments that are bounced with a medium of drying oil particularly in early modern Europe, linseed oil. 

Regularly linseed oil was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense was popularly called as 'varnishes' and was valued for their body and gloss. 

The occasionally used oils include poppy-seed oil, walnut oil, and safflower oil.

These oils provide a variety of properties to the oil paint, such as less yellowing or different freshening times.

The gloss of the paints varies depending on the oil. 

Painters frequently use different kinds of oils in the same painting depending on specific colors and effects desired. 

The paints itself provides a particular stability depending on the medium. 

The oil painting did not achieve popularity when it was initially used for the Buddhist Paintings by Indian and Chinese painters in western Afghanistan a short time between the fifth and ninth centuries.

In recent years, water soluble oil paint has come to importance, to some extent restoring the procedure of traditional oils.

Water soluble paints enclose an emulsifier which permits them to be thinned with water. It also allows very fast drying times (1-3 days) when compared with traditional oils (1-3 weeks).

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Pastel Painting


Pastel painting is defined as a fine art medium in the form of a stick. It contains pure powdered dye and a binder. The coloring used in pastels includes all colored art media such as oil paints, binder etc. The binder is of a neutral shade and low diffusion.

The accurate composition and uniqueness of an individual stick which is used in pastel painting depends on the nature of pastel and the amount of binder used. It may vary by individual manufacturer. Gum Arabic and gum tragacanth are the binders which have been used traditionally for dry pastels. The binder Methyl cellulose was introduced in the twentieth century. It contains often a chalk or gypsum component in it. 




The dry pastel media may be sub divided as follows:

  • Soft pastels: This is the most extensively used form of pastel. The sticks used for soft pastels have a superior portion of pigment and less binder, ensuing in brighter colors.
  • Hard pastels: The hard pastels have an elevated piece of binder and less pigment, producing a sharp drawing objects that is useful for fine details.
  • Pastel pencils: The pastel pencils contain a pastel lead. They are used to add fine details of drawing.
Different approach to manufacture

  • Oil pastels : These oil pastels have a soft, buttery uniformity and strong colors. They do not need glue and are slightly more difficult to blend than soft pastel.
  • Water-soluble pastels : These are parallel to soft pastels, but have a water-soluble component in it such as glycol. This permits the colors to be thinned out using water wash.

Friday 5 August 2011

Ceramic Painting

The word ceramic and ceramic arts stands for art objects such as information, tiles, and tableware prepared with clay and other rare resources by the progression of pottery. 

Some ceramic products are observed as very well art, while some are regarded as ornamental, industrial or applied art objects, or as work of art in archaeology. This kind of painting process involves one individual or a group of people to design, make and decorate the ware. Decorative ceramics are sometimes termed as "art pottery".

The sound "ceramics" arrives from the Greek word keramikos meaning "pottery", which in turn comes from keramos means "potter's clay”. Most traditional ceramic goods were made from soil or clay mixed with other materials, fashioned and subjected to heat. The tableware, decorative ceramics and many are normally made this way. 


Ceramics is the fine art and science of making objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials by the act of warmth according to the modern ceramic engineering usage. It leaves out glass and mosaic made from glass tesserae.

Tuesday 2 August 2011

Digital painting

Digital painting is an emerging unique trend of art and design that will not fade away any time soon.  It flourishes mostly in production art and very vibrant that includes traditional painting methods namely watercolor, oils, impasto, etc are pertained using digital tools. These digital tools are used by means of a computer, a digitizing tablet, stylus and software. Digital painting varies from the other appearance of digital art especially computer generated art. 

Digital Painting


Many artists make use of painting techniques in order to create the digital painting directly on the computer. Almost all digital painting programs consume various brushes and paint effects in order to imitate the use of physical media. Many programs include brushes that are digitally styled to symbolize our traditional style like acrylics, pastels, oils, charcoal, air brushing and pen.

The artist can make their own brush by means of a combination of texture and shape. It is very significant to overpass the gap between traditional and digital painting. Software for digital painting includes Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, ArtRage, and GIMP and open Canvas. This kind of paintings is extensively used in conceptual design for film, television and video games. 

Impressionism, Realism, and watercolor are some types of digital painting.

Monday 25 July 2011

Tanjore painting

An imperative form of classical South Indian painting which is subject to the town of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, India is Tanjore painting. The Nayakas of Thanjavur encouraged art, classical dance and music as well as literature both in Telugu and Tamil before the period of 1600 AD. Tanjore paintings are well known for its surface wealth, bright colors and dense composition. The major subject of Tanjore paintings is their Hindu gods and goddesses, and saints as well.

Tanjore paintings

Tanjore painting process consists of many stages. The initial stage is to make the preliminary drawing of the image on the base. The base can be a cloth pasted over a wooden base.  After that the chalk powder or zinc oxide is mixed with water-soluble adhesive and applied on the bottom and in order to make the bottom smoother, a gentle coarse is applied a little bit. 

After the completion of the drawing, the image is decorated with the jewellery and the apparels. The stones which are used to decorate the image are called as semi-precious stones or Jaipur stones. The jewellery has also been decorated with threads or laces. Then the gold foils are placed on top of it. And at last pigments are used to add colors to the figures in the paintings.

Tanjore figures paintings are fixed. The figures are addressed in the center of the board in which the inside portion is beautifully decorated with arches or curtains.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Glass Painting

Usually, glass painting refers to painting on the exterior of a sheet of glass to be included in a stained glass work.
The major types of paints and processes used for glass painting are:
Traditional stained glass painting
This kind of paints includes the following such as,
  • vinegar trace paint,
  • matt paint,
  • silver stain,
  • Oil based paints.
Paints made for surfaces other than glass
It is also possible to paint on glass with paints that are specially made for painting on other surfaces. Oil paints and acrylic paints can work, as will extensively accessible alternatives such as model paint or automobile paint.


Air-dried and oven cured glass paints
These paints have the advantage of being specially invented for painting on glass. They come in two ways:
  • air-dried
  • Oven cured.
The most excellent known producer of air-dried and oven cured paints are Delta and Pebeo.

Glass enamels
Painting with glass enamels has developed appreciably in popularity the last few years because the range of colors is widespread, and the ability to mix colors means that a practically unlimited palette is available.Glass enamels are prepared of minute glass units, care must be taken to make sure that they are well-matched with the base glass being painted on. 

Screen printing
Screen-printing is sometimes known as silk-screening process, in which ink is enforced through holes in a mesh screen and onto paper or cloth. Wax or other materials are used to fill a number of the holes and make models by scheming where the ink goes. 

Other photographic and printing techniques
It is also likely to produce paintings on glass using other photographic, printing, or xerographic techniques.The simplest of all these method is probably the use of the screen-printing procedure to achieve photographic detail.The use of print-making techniques to print on glass was found by Harvey Littleton, the father of the studio glass movement.       

Monday 18 July 2011

Painting

Painting which serves as a mode of expression is acquired by applying paint, tint, color or other standard to a surface. The painting in art depicts both the act and the performance. It can be naturalistic as well as representational. The elements play a vital role in every beautiful and attractive painting.



Elements of paintings
 
1.     Intensity

The sensitivity and symbol of intensity enables every painting. In space each point has its personal strength that can be symbolized in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. 

2.     Color and tone

The essence of music is pitch and rhythm. Similarly color and tone stands as an essence for the paintings. Colors are extremely biased, and also have observable psychological effects.
The colors simply not speaking the psychological and symbolical meanings, yet they are added only add to the potential, derived context of meanings. Because of this the acuity of a painting is vastly subjective. 

3.     Rhythm

Rhythm plays a very important role in both the music as well as paintings. Rhythm can be defined as "a silence included into a series". In art the free flow of power donates to the esthetical value.

4.     Non-traditional elements

The non – traditional elements are mainly used in Modern paintings by Modern artists. Those modern painters include dissimilar resources such as sand, buttress, straw or wood for their texture.