UNIT #9 2-D MEDIA
MS.
TANGUAY
FCHS
VI SUAL ARTI
BY THE END OF THIS UNIT…
• I can name a variety of two-dimensional media
and give examples of each.
• I can explain the history, origins, and expressive
possibilities of two-dimensional media.
• I can explain the advantages and disadvantages
of using particular media.
• I can identify the medium of an artwork.
9.1 A QUICK LOOK AT 2-D MEDIA
• Two-dimensional media like paintings, photography,
and printmaking have height and width but no real
depth.
• Medium (pl. media): the material an artist uses to
make an artwork.
• Choice of medium is often related to the subject
matter (what they want to show) and what the artist
wants to express.
• Most media may be used in several ways (ex. pen
and ink)
• Each medium has capabilities and limitations that
the artist must understand in order to master the
medium and achieve his or her purpose
9.2 DRAWING
• Drawing media date back thousands of years.
• Pencils, charcoal, and India ink are monochromatic media
• Pencils and charcoal produce darker tones the harder you
press on them.
• When India ink is used straight from the bottle, it is opaque. It
can also me thinned with water to produce washes.
• Chalk pastel are dry media that offer artists a variety of colors.
• During the Ice Age, hunter-artists used pieces of
charcoal and red ocher on cave walls to outline shapes
of animals.
• Ancient Egyptians scribes used ink on sheets of papyrus.
• In the 1400s, European artists started using pencils.
• You can get different values by changing the
amount of pressure you put on the drawing tool.
• The amount of graphite in the pencil determines the
type of line it can make.
• Colored chalks lie between drawing and painting
media.
• Pastels were introduced in the 1700s. Allow the use of color
with out the prep needed for painting but they are very
fragile.
• Must be sprayed with fixative (a mixture of shellac and
alcohol)
9.3 PAINTING
• Painting media are made of colored powders mixed with a
liquid.
• Watercolor is pigment mixed with water, is thin and transparent.
• Been around for centuries and were first used to add a little color to
drawings. Became popular on their own in the early 1800s.
• To lighten a color you add water. If you want an area to be white you let the
paper show through and don’t paint it.
• Tempera is pigment mixed with water and oil emulsion. They are
creamy and opaque.
• Can be applied to paper, wood, or canvas. Egg yolk was the traditional
emulsion but now we use casein (a milk product), gum arabic, and wax.
• To lighten a color add white. Paint areas white that need it.
• Water is used to thin only to make the paint flow better and is also used as a
solvent to clean brushes.
• Was most popular in the late Middle Ages (1100-1500) used on wooden
panels. It dries quickly, allows repainting, fine detail, and a matte finish.
• Colors tend to change while drying.
• Gouache is considered a compromise between watercolor
and tempera.
• Not as difficult or as expensive as tempera. It is opaque, waterbased, and usually applied to paper. It is easier to control than
watercolor. Tends to look flatter, “chalky”
• Oil paint, the best known painting medium, is made of pigment
mixed with linseed oil. It dries slowly and can be used thinly or
thickly.
• Turpentine is the thinner or solvent.
• Has been popular since the 1400s when it was first used for colored
glazes over tempera paintings.
• In the 1500s, canvas replaced wood panels as the principle support
making oil on canvas the most popular medium of all time.
• Oil is more flexible than tempera. It can be opaque or translucent.
• It dries very slowly, allowing more time to blend and create effects.
• Canvas is the most common support. It is light weight, allows for
large sizes, is cheap.
• Oil rots canvas so to keep this from happening you must put glue
(sizing) or gesso (a plasterlike substance) on before adding paints.
• Acrylic paint is pigment mixed with a plastic material in a
water-soluable liquid. It can be thinned or thickened, and dries
much more quickly than oil paint.
• Came into use after World War II and is the newest paint medium.
• Can be applied to any support, including canvas and is the most
versatile medium.
• Acts like watercolors when thinned with water, when polymers are
added they can act like glazes, and they can be made thicker
than oil paints.
• Extremely fast drying but can be slowed down with a retarder.
• Water is used to clean tools and brushes. If left to dry on tools it dries
permanently and cannot be removed.
• Does not rot canvas so can be applied directly.
• Fresco is one of the oldest painting media. The artist spreads
wet plaster onto a wall or ceiling, and applies colors before the
plaster dries.
• Plaster dries quickly, so the artist must plan ahead so that they are
able to paint it all within a few hours.
• Difficult to make in-process changes, it is not flexible or versatile.
• It is durable and permanent. Can stand up to air pollution better
than other forms of painting.
• Mosaic, another ancient art form is a picture made from
thousands of tiny pieces of stone or glass called tesserae that
are set into cement.
• Typically used to decorate a wall, ceiling, or floor.
• “Painting in stone”, it is colorful, durable.
• Most popular in the 1300s. Early Christians covered the walls
and ceilings of their churches with mosaics made of glass so
that they would reflect light.
• Images have to be simple and clear
9.4 PRINTMAKING
• Prints are produced on paper, like drawings. Unlike
drawings, prints can be reproduced many times.
• Prints are made with ink, paper, and a plate (surface on
which the picture or design is made). Paper is pressed
against the plate to create the print.
• Relief prints are made by carving into the surface of a
plate. Ink clings to the uncarved surface of the plate.
• The image projects from the surface of the plate.
• The woodcut was the most traditional form of relief print but
now we use linoleum cuts. You cut away the parts that are to
remain white
• If doing colored relief prints requires that you create a separate
plate for each color.
• Intaglio prints are the opposite of relief prints: ink fills the lines
cut into the plate, and is transferred to paper by the
pressure of a press.
• An intaglio plate is metal, usually a sheet of copper or zinc.
• Two kinds of intaglio are engraving and etching. Engraving
requires you to cut lines into the plate using a special gouge
called a burin. An etching has you cover the plate with wax,
called a ground, draws into the layer with a needle then places
the plate in acid. The acid eats the exposed lines.
• Aquatint is a variation of etching, binding resin to the plate and
blocking the areas not to be eaten by acid with shellac.
• Engraved lines look hard and steely, etched lines are softer and
aquatint is gritty.
• Lithography prints are made by drawing the image on the
surface of the plate (block of limestone) with a greasy tool.
The surface is dampened with water. Ink sticks to the drawn
lines and is transferred to paper.
• Most widely used of all printmaking methods.
• It is based on the idea that oil and water do not mix.
• Finished result looks like a drawing done in charcoal or crayon
• Screen printing is when ink is forced through a fine screen
on which a stencil has been created. The ink passes through
the stenciled image to the paper or other surface. (T-shirts!!)
• Screens are made of nylon or polyester that is stretched tightly
over a frame.
• Ink is forced through with a squeegee
• A separate screen is needed for each color printed
9.5 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FILM
• Photography, like prints, photos can be reproduced
many times.
• A photographer captures a scene on light-sensitive film using a
camera.
• The film is developed in a chemical solution, and becomes a
negative, a semitransparent image in which lights and darks
are reversed.
• To print the image, the photographer passes light through the
negative onto light-sensitive paper, which is then developed.
• Has become the modern folk medium (art of the general public).
• Though more and more people are using digital cameras, serious
photographers use film for its superior reproduction qualities.
• Film and video art record the moving images that
can be viewed again and again.
• Films are made using cameras that take many still images.
When the images are printed onto the film by the projector
onto a screen, they re-create the motion the camera
captured. (Flip books)
• The “peep-show” was a machine that created the illusion of
motion. The viewer turned a crank to move a series of
photographs making them appear to move. (Basis for the movie
projector)
9.6 VIDEO AND COMPUTER ART
• Videos refer to the picture portion of television. They
are created by converting scanned images into
electronic signals. The signals are transmitted to a
television, where they are converted back into
images by a “gun” that fires them at the screen.
• Many artists now use video instead of film. They use camcorders
(handheld units that combine the functions of a camera and
recorder).
• Camcorders are small, easy to operate, and relatively inexpensive.
They produce high quality images.
• Tape is cheaper than film, you can play it back immediately
• Computer art is electronic, like video art.
• Images are made up of pixels, tiny dots on the computer
screen.
• Artists use special programs and techniques to create the
illusion of three dimensions on the two-dimensional surface,
just as painters and printmakers do.
• The technology is developing rapidly and constantly changing.
• To create a 3-D image computer artists follow the same rules
that painters do (perspective, foreshortening, shading, etc.)
using special programs.
9.7 MIXED MEDIA
• Some artists combine several media in one work of
art. These works are called mixed media.
• Some times these works combine 2-D and 3-D media which
makes them hard to classify.
• Collage is a mixed media collection of materials (often
papers) pasted on a flat surface.
• Invented in 1912 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque
• Montage is a collage made up of photographs or other
pictures.