Painting Techniques

IMPASTO:
The process or technique of laying on paint or pigment thickly so that it stands out from a surface.

Impasto is an application of paint (oil, acrylic, varnish) which is applied thickly, and dries as a heavily textured surface, it really makes a physical statement, which is why you’ll find it most often in expressive, abstract works, such as Jackson Pollock, Vincent Van Gogh and Williem De Kooning. Impasto has been around for a very long time, but it was Van Gogh that started using it for its expressive qualities, using impasto to give weight to his brilliant colors, movement to his skies, and emotion to his landscapes. This painting technique is almost three-dimensional in appearance. Using an impasto technique often leaves visible brush strokes in the finished painting. Many times those brush strokes are actually more important than the subject matter itself. Impasto is a type of sculpture, but for painters.

Impasto paint serves several purposes. First, it makes the light reflect in a particular way, giving the artist additional control over the play of light on the painting. Second, 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.

a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. Jackson Pollock was well known for his uniquely defined style of 'drip painting. Pollock worked on large scale pieces, using colour to express his intense emotions, using sticks, trowels, knives to aggressively spill and splatter the paint, producing heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added to the paint. As a result, his finished dry paintings have a heavily textured surface, this combined with the abstract expressionist 'drip' paint, expresses the difficult life Pollock lived in, showing his most inner turmoil and unhappiness. The German born figurative painter Frank Auerbach used thick colourful oil paint which he applied with pallet knives or thick paint brushes, distorting the subject almost completely. In spite of the excessive piling on of paint, the effect of these works on the mind is of images recovered and re conceived in the barest and most particular light. He paints the world in chaos.



Frank Auerbach



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                       Jackson Pollock.

SCUMBLING:
Modify a painting by applying a very thin coat of opaque paint to give a softer or duller effect.

Scumbling techniques have been used by master painters since the 1600s to create smooth gradations, modify a previously dried layer of paint and to add a sense of depth. This technique is accomplished by applying thin layers of light opaque colours over dark layers of dried transparent paint. The final results gives a painting a surface that various in how much of the under painting is revealed. The ultra thin layer of an opaque paint can soften an area of a painting while giving it a misty, almost out of focus look that might be typical of background objects. Adding a thicker layer of paint to an area would naturally give that object an appearance of being in the foreground. However, scumbling too much of a canvas with thick opaque paint can result in a return to a flattened sense of depth. The scumbling technique is often used to create a beam of light penetrating an otherwise darken room. It is also useful to add a glowing effect to accentuate individual objects and skin tones. Scumbling may be achieved by scraping, scrubbing or dragging the lighter layer of opaque paint over a dark underpainting, resulting in a hazy, opalescent effect. Scumbling allows the artist to effect smooth transitions from light to dark and to modify the original colour of the overlaid area without completely concealing it.

UNDERPAINTING:

Paint subsequently overlaid with another layer or with a finishing coat.

One of the most widely employed Old Masters painting techniques , underpainting is the preliminary process that allows the artist to render the outline, define the composition, and set the tonal atmosphere of his or her painting. Underpainting creates a neutrally coloured version of the final painting using tempera or oils. Tempera is a medium of painting in which pigments are mixed with an emulsion of egg yolk and water. Successive layers of colour are added over the underpainting to produce the final work. Otherwise known as dead colouring  underpainting is usually monochromatic but may also be coloured. Underpainting guides the artist through the arduous and painstaking endeavour of creating a masterpiece by establishing a tonal and compositional path for the artist to follow. Vermeer used the underpainting technique with oil paint, the technique which defined one of the most important stages in his working procedure. The Italian Renaissance painter Andrea del Sarto used a white undertone for highlighted areas and darker colours for shadows, an example of his underpainting technique is 'Portrait of a Woman In Yellow' (picture to the right) which has a sketchy, warm brown underpainting, seen in the right-hand side of the face of an unfinished portrait.

SGRAFFITO:
A form of decoration made by scratching a surface to a lower layer of a contrasting colour.

 and sgraffiti come from the Italian word 'graffiare'' which means 'to scratch' which was a technique that played a significant role during the years of the Renaissance in Italy. It is a painting technique where the artist scratches into the top layer of the paint to reveal areas of the surface underneath. This method is best suited for oil paint as the paint stay wet longer, but acrylic paint can also be used if you work fast. The images are built up by applying thick layers of paint, and then by using a blunt tool, you scratch into the top layer to reveal the white background surface or another colour underneath. The background can be painted simply white or monotone colour, or a variation of colours and patterns can be created as a painting surface. For a more complex pattern, a third layer of paint in a different colour can be applied on top and then scratched into again to reveal both layers underneath.You can use a combination of brushes, painting knifes, needles and brush handles to create the different marks and textures depending on the effects and lines and patterns you require. The tool you use should not be too sharp so you avoid cutting through the paper or scratch the underlying paint or surface. Sgraffito is especially effective on impasto painting.

GLAZING:

Glazing is a technique employed by painters since the invention of oil painting.Paint glaze is a thin, translucent film of color painted over a base coat of paint. The purpose of painting this way creates a special optical effect, resulting in a deeper and richer color than if you had mixed the two colors on a palette and then applied it to the canvas.Glazing tends to settle in the crevices of the canvas texture and the top can be wiped off to show the original color, but the glaze down in the texture will alter the color tone of the underlying hue.Paint glaze is commonly used in many faux and decorative painting techniques and plays an essential part in creating a rich, dimensional look for paintings, and increasing the paint’s drying time, giving it appearance of depth and dimension, and perfecting the color. Make sure to work in a well-ventilated area, as the odor from the paint can saturate your working or living area. You can glaze with any pigment. Some pigments will fade much more than others over time; and how you layer scumbling and glazing affects the basic physical structure of the painting. improper application can result in cracking or flaking.

The dark transparent pigments are sort of slimy or jelly-like and behave like wood stain.
The dark staining pigments have smaller, rounder molecules which penetrate surfaces more, and don't reflect as much light. The bright reflective pigments are stiff and clay-like and behave more like chalk
The clay-like pigments have large rough molecules with many reflective surfaces.

Vermeer built up his paintings in a series of successive glazes is incorrect and creates a distorted perception of Vermeer's painting methods. An oil painting cannot be created by a series of successive glazes as if they were water color washes. The bulk of painting in the 17th century was executed with opaque and semi-opaque layers of pigment. Glazes also attract dust due to their high oil content. Dutch painters like Vermeer, used glazing very selectively according to well-known formulas.

A superb example of glazing can be found in Vermeer's Girl With A Red Hat (see image left) various stages of the seventeenth-century multi-stage painting process can be observed. The red hat, according to common practice for painting bright red objects, is first modeled with shades of pure Vermillion  and black. Subsequently, once the underpainting is thoroughly dry, the lighter areas will be glazed with a thin layer of pure madder lake while the shadowed areas would be deepened with a thicker glaze of madder lake and, perhaps, some black. 



STIPPLING:



Applied with a pen or brush, dots compose a painting or drawing to create tone.The art of stippling is building colors in a subtle way using a sponge or a stiff bristle brush. Nearly any type of firm brush can be used for this type of painting. The technique allows the painter to achieve beautiful gradations of color with variations in the intensity of the colors applied. Foliage or backgrounds are great for surfaces using this technique. Use dark, medium and light colors when stippling to create depth.
Using the right tools for the job is important. Soft brushes don't work, but a stiff brush or even an old one with splayed bristles will do nicely. Sea sponges also work very well to achieve gaps and spaces that will allow you to return to those open areas once the foundation color has dried. You can then apply more color or different values of color. Paint trays or plates allow space for blending paint. Clean the brush or sponge often in order to keep the colors from becoming tainted by one another. Colors should be well separated on the tray so you can pick up just what you need as you work. You can stipple oil paint over an acrylic base coat, but acrylic paint won't adhere properly and stay fast to an oil painted surface. Paper towels or old rags come in handy for cleanup.

WET ON WET/ALLA PRIMA:

is a painting technique, used mostly in oil painting, in which layers of wet paint are applied to previous layers of wet paint. This technique requires a fast way of working, because the work has to be finished before the first layers have dried. It may also be referred to as 'direct painting' or the French term au premier coup (at first stroke).Wet-on-wet painting has been practiced alongside other techniques since the invention of oil painting, and was used by several of the best Early Netherlandish painters in parts of their pictures, such as Jan van Eyck in theArnolfini portrait, and Rogier van der Weyden. In traditional painting methods new layers were applied to most parts of a painting only after allowing the previous layer to completely dry. This drying process could vary from several days to several weeks, depending on the thickness of the layer. Work done using "alla prima" can be carried out in one or more sessions depending of the type of paints used and their respective drying time, but it is mostly done in one session or "sitting" only. In the medium of watercolours, wet-on-wet painting requires a certain finesse in embracing unpredictability. Highly translucent and prone to accidents, watercolor paint will bloom in unpredictable ways that, depending on the artist's frame of mind, can be a burden. watercolour bleeds into the wet surface such as in Winslow Homer's (1980) 'Rowing Home' painting above.