Painting provides
satisfying and creative enjoyment.
Painting provides a fulfilling, creative outlet and a rich means of self-expression. It allows you to create individualized works for yourself and others. There is a world of ideas and possibilities open to the budding artist. A vital first step in developing your artistic abilities is to discover the medium that best suits your sensibilities, your level of commitment and even your budget. Oil paints are enduring in popularity, but may pose challenges for the novice. Oil pastels are an accessible alternative that can be used to wonderful effect, as can chalk pastels and water-soluble wax pastels.
Oil Paints
Oil paints have been the primary medium of painters for centuries. A mastery of oil paints allows the artist to create a myriad of effects in styles ranging from the Old Masters to Impressionism to today's contemporary art. However, with this versatility comes challenges. Painting with oils requires practice, and the initial investment in materials can be steep. Oil painting mediums include turpentine and linseed oil, so good ventilation is of paramount importance. Once these factors are addressed, painting with oils can be extremely rewarding. Stretched canvases and art boards are ideal surfaces for oils. Canvas and board sizes range from smaller than an index card to larger than life size, making them suitable as accent pieces or as a focal point to dominate a room.
Oil Pastels
Oil pastels are crayon-like sticks of vibrant colors made by binding raw pigments with wax. This process creates a media that flows well, retains rich color and is easy to work with. You can draw with oil pastels just like with crayons, but oil pastels can also be blended together in a multitude of colors and shadings. Oil pastels are water-soluble and can be used with turpentine, linseed oil and other oil painting mediums for a painterly effect. They can applied over both oil and acrylic paints. Oil pastels can be used on untreated surfaces such as paper, wood and glass, giving them greater flexibility than oil paints. Because oil pastel paintings never harden entirely, they are generally displayed under glass.
Soft Pastels
Soft pastels are sticks of color made by blending pigments with clay. These pastels are the ramped-up, power version of chalk. Soft pastels are available in a wide range of intense saturated colors, making them ideal for the beginning artist. This array of luscious colors makes creating a pastel painting as simple as opening a sketchbook and applying your choice of colors with no need for blending. Pastels can be used to sketch lightly, leaving areas of paper untouched and showing through. When pastels are applied heavily and in layers, covering the entire surface of the paper, it is considered a pastel "painting."
Wax Pastels
Wax pastels or artists' crayons are not as commonly known as oil or soft pastels, but are well worth discovering. Wax pastels are softer than colored pencils, with more intense pigmentation than crayons. They are clean to work with, odor-free, and can be used on any surface. Because they are water-soluble, it is simple to use a wet brush to add a wash, and combine watercolor and drawing effects in one painting. Wax pastels dry completely so they can be used to create note cards and greeting cards as well as more stationary works of art. Wax pastels offer an affordable, flexible and richly rewarding introduction to painting for the novice artist.
