The document discusses different mediums used in visual arts including painting, sculpture, and architecture. For painting, it describes the materials and techniques used for oil painting, tempera, watercolor, pastel, fresco, and acrylic painting. For sculpture, it discusses various materials like stone, bronze, wood, ivory, terra cotta and their properties. It also explains subtractive and additive sculpture processes. For architecture, it outlines common building materials and structural styles like post-and-lintel, arch, and cantilever constructions.

1. MEDIUM OF THE VISUAL
ARTS
Prepared by:
ERIC F. PAZZIUAGAN, RN, MAN

2. MEDIUM
 Refers to the materials which are used
by an artist.
 A means by which he communicates his
ideas.
 Very essential to art.

3. Painting
 The art of creating meaningful effects on a
flat surface by the use of pigments.
 Each medium exerts a pronounced effect on
the finished product, is capable of varied
treatment, and determines its own stroke.
 The materials of the painter are pigments
applied to wet plaster, canvas, wood or
paper.

4. Oil
 Pigments are mixed in oil.
 Surface: canvas, wood, paper, metal
 Most familiar type of painting is done with
oils on canvas.
 Surface most suitable: must receive oil freely
and yet not absorb it, can withstand
temperature changes, and not crack the
pigment on it.

5.  Pigments mixed with oil provide a medium
that gives richness in the opacity of light and
depth of shadow.
 Pigments can come from different sources:
minerals, vegetable matter, coal tars, and
other chemical combinations.
 Ground by hand or machine then mixed with oil.
 Painters usually depend upon those
pigments which do not change through the
years.

6.  Oil painting: popular because there are many
ways of handling oil pigments.
 It is possible to get a wide range of separate
effects.
 Pigment may be applied in a thick and heavy
manner or in washes of almost water color
transparency.
 Oil color is the best method for a convincing
representation where reproduction of color
is necessary.

7.  Its ease of handling, the easy blending of
tones, and the possibility of painting over
and covering any mistake are some of the
reasons why oil painting is a very popular
technique.
 Two methods of painting in oil:
 Direct method- paints are opaque and are
applied to the surface just as they are to look in
the finished product; more flexible
 Indirect method: paint is applied in many thin
layers of transparent color

8.  Disadvantages:
 Dries slowly and has a tendency to rise to the
surface and form a film over the picture, making
it appear dull.
 Has a tendency to become yellow and crack so
that preservation usually becomes a problem.

9. “Maria Makiling” by Carlos “Botong” Francisco

10. Tempera
 Mixture of ground pigments and an
albuminous or colloidal vehicle, either
egg, gum, or glue, used by
Egyptian, Medieval, and Renaissance
painters.
 Special characteristic: being an
emulsion
 Watery, milk-like texture of oily and watery
consistency.

11.  Usually done on a wooden panel that has
been smooth with a coating of plaster.
 The colors are mixed with egg yolk.
 There is little blending or fusing of colors
since paint dries rapidly.
 Colors are laid on side by side or
superimposed.
 Needs careful details.
 It is hard to obtain rich, deep tones, and
shadows.

12.  Advantages:
 Dries readily with the evaporation of water
 Great luminosity of tone
 Colors are clear and beautiful.

13. “Madonna Enthroned with Four Saints”

14. Watercolor
 Pigments are mixed with water and applied to
fine white paper.
 Good watercolor paintings are not easy to
make.
 Require a high degree of technical dexterity.
 In pure watercolor painting, all the light comes
from the ground.
 Paper is the most commonly used ground.
 Other ground: parchment, ivory, silk, and
cambric.

15.  A medium familiar to every school child.
 Gouache: opaque water color
 Made by grinding opaque colors with water and
mixing the product with a preparation of gum
and adding Chinese white to transparent
watercolors.
 It differs from the brilliant quality of translucent
water color painting whose major effects are
caused by the white paper.

17. Pastel
 The most recent medium.
 Possesses only surfaces of light, gives no
glazed effect, and most closely resembles
dry pigment.
 Pigment is bound so as to form a crayon
which is applied directly to the
surface, usually, paper.
 As support for pastel painting
paper, pasteboard or canvas is used.

18.  As far as the technique is concerned, the
painter is free to handle the material to suit
himself.
 It is a very flexible medium.
 Varied effects may be produced.
 Not a very popular medium because no one
has yet to discovered the way to preserve its
original freshness.
 The chalk tends to rub off and the picture
loses its brilliance.

21. Fresco
 The most popular type of painting.
 Colors are mixed with water and applied to
fresh plaster which absorbs the color.
 Since the pigment has been incorporated
with the plaster, it lasts until the wall is
destroyed.
 Flourished during the 15th and 16th century.
 Fresco means “fresh.”

22.  The process begins with preliminary
sketches, later enlarged to full-size cartoons
which are transferred to rough plaster.
 The coloring must be ready as soon as the
plaster is put on the wall.
 It is prepared by mixing a pigment with water
or with water and lime.
 When this is applied to the wet plaster, the
lime binds the pigment to the plaster and
makes the painting part of the wall.

23.  Since fresco must be done quickly, it is a
very exacting method.
 There is no changing once the design is
begun.
 Only earth pigments are used because of the
chemical action of the plaster on the paint.
 These colors have uniformity of tone and no
glaring contrasts.

24.  Disadvantages:
 Almost
impossible to
move a fresco
 Painting is
subject to
disasters that
may happen to
the wall of which
it has become a
part.

28. Acrylic
 The newest medium and one that is used widely
by painters today.
 Synthetic paints using acrylic emulsions as
binder.
 Combine transparency and quick- drying
qualities of watercolor and are as flexible as oil.
 They are completely insoluble when dry and can
be used almost on any surface.
 They do not tend to crack, and tun yellow with
age.

29. SCULPTURE
 In choosing a subject for the sculpture,
the most important thing to consider is
the material.
 Substances available for sculpture are
limitless.
 Different materials require different
methods of handling.

30.  Soft medium: will lend itself to a
modelling technique that uses
squeezing and shaping and
continuously adding itself to it as the
work goes on.
 Allows for the expansion of gesture.
 Hard medium: requires the process of
cutting and taking away from the block.
 Confined to the limits of the piece of wood
or stone.

31. Two Major Sculpture Processes
 Subtractive process:
 Unwanted material is cut away
 Carving of stone and wood
 Additive process:
 Example: Construction of figure by putting
together bits of clay, or by welding together parts
of metal.
 Final result if putting together smaller segments
of the material.

32. Two types of Sculpture
 Relief: figures which are attached to the
ground

33.  Free standing: can be seen from all sides

34. Stone and Bronze
 Stone:
 durable, resistant to the elements, fire,
and other hazards
 Heavy and breaks easily
 Marble- Favorite material in Greece and
Italy; high gloss when polished

36.  Metals:
 Most commonly used is bronze
 May be solid in small statues
 Hallowed in most large statues (heavy and
expensive)
 Tendency to crack when cooled
 Disadvantages: difficulty and intricacy in casting
bronze
 Rich color and texture: most beautiful media
 Light and can support itself in many positions
 Other metals: forged iron, welded steel, and
duraluminum

38. Wood
 Advantage: cheap, readily available, and easy
to cut
 Polishes well and has a smooth shiny surface
and beautiful color.
 Relatively light and can be easily made into a
variety of shapes.
 Popular in Paete, Pkil in Laguna and
Betis, Pampanga,
 Drawback: limited in size, burn easily, discolor
and decay easily

40. Ivory
 Intrinsic value of the material.
 Lends itself to technical mastery.
 Lacks the vigor of wooden statues
 Like wood, it also cracks
 Seldom used today.

42. Terra Cotta
 Plastic clay
 Yields to even the slightest pressure and can
be worked and re-worked until the artist has
achieved what he wants to do.
 Unfired clay is a fragile material and
sculpture in this medium would have a short
life.
 For a more durable work in clay, the sculptor
can fire the original in a kiln.

43.  Result is terra cotta which means “cooked
earth”
 Moderately coarse clay product fired at
comparatively low temperature.
 Usually painted and coated with heavy glaze.
 Breaks and chips easily.
 Not a strong material and it cannot stand
strain or weight.
 Beautiful and versatile medium.

45. Other Materials
 Aluminum
 Chromium
 Steel
 Plastic
 Less expensive
 Less fragile
 light
 Chemically treated clay
 Stone for casting in liquid form

46. Architecture
 Art of designing and constructing building.
 Functional definition: to fulfil a need that
leads to its creation.
 Materials used and the methods of
assembling them are among the factors
contributing to architectural style.
 Materials:
stone, wood, brick, concrete, glass.

47.  Wood:
 Common building material
 Advantages: abundance, relative
durability, and high tensile and
compressions strength
 Disadvantages: Easily destroyed by
moisture, insects, and fire
 Plywood: improved the structural
possibilities of wood; stronger than any
known material.

48.  Stone:
 Material used when permanence is desired
 Concrete:
 made of sand and gravel mixed with cement
 high compressive strength
 doesn’t crumble or break down when subjected
to heavy weight
 Does not corrode and is fire resistant
 Stronger: ferro-concrete or reinforced concrete
(reinforced with steel)

49.  Steel:
 Tough alloy of iron in variable amounts
 Malleable under proper conditions and greatly
hardened by sudden cooling
 Tensile strength
 Made possible the building of the high-rise
structures which are very popular this days.

51. Types of Construction
 Post-and-lintel:
 Consists of two vertical posts for support
(post) and horizontal one (lintel).
 Generally used for wooden buildings.

54.  Arch
 Dominant in Roman architecture
 Architectural forms built from pieces of wood
called voussoirs with joints between them and
are arranged in semi-circle.
 All materials are in compression
 Typical for stone construction: can stand great
pressure
 Dome is an extension of the arch
 Roof resembling an inverted cup or hemisphere,
formed by round arches or vaults rising from a round or
many-sided base.

57.  Cantilever
 Any structural part projecting horizontally and
anchored at one end only.
 Needs a beam with tensile strength, and does
not crack or break easily
 Largely utilized in buildings with steel as
medium
 Wood is also used but is limited since it has a
tendency to warp, sag or rot.
 Used in construction of skyscrapers which
depends for support upon a steel skeleton.