This document provides an overview of different visual art mediums across sculpture, painting, drawing, and prints. For sculpture, the main mediums discussed are stone, bronze, ivory, and terra cotta. For painting, the mediums covered include oil, watercolor, fresco, encaustic, pastel, mosaic, stained glass, and tapestry. Drawing mediums mentioned are pencil, silverpoint, ink, bister, charcoal, and chalk. The print mediums outlined are engraving, etching, and lithography. The document examines the materials and techniques used for each medium.

1. MEDIUMS
OF VISUAL
ARTS
Preparad by:
Kimberly Cassidy M. Meniano
BBTE IT III-4D

2. Medium
- an agency or means of doing something.
- the intervening substance through which
impressions are conveyed to the senses or
a force acts on objects at a distance.

3. SCULPTURE
Stone is durable: it resist weather, fire,
and all ordinary hazards, it is heavy,
expensive and breaks easily.
Of the metals, the one most commonly
used traditionally was bronze
A. Stone and Bronze

4. Praxiteles
Hermes and
Dionysus
(ca. 350 B.C.)
Parian marble
King of Judah
(twelfth century)
Stone

5. Usually carvings in ivory are
small, the reasons being
the great expense of ivory
and the difficulty of
securing it in large pieces.
The color of ivory is a rich,
creamy yellow. Like wood,
ivory cracks.
B. Ivory
Snake Goddess
(Minoan, ca. 1500 B.C.)
Gold and ivory.

6. The term terra cotta
means “baked earth”.
Terra cotta is made
by firing clay, as in
pottery. It is usually
painted and covered
with a heavy glaze.
C. Terra Cotta
Lohan
Chinese, Liao Dynasty
Pottery

7. PAINTINGS
The vehicle is oil and the surface is usually
canvas, though other various surfaces may
be used. The special advantage of oil is
that is stays moist for a long time. The
rough surface of a text is so thick that each
stroke shows clearly.
A. Oil

8. Vincent Van Gogh
Self-Portrait in a
Straw Hat
(1988-1989)
Oil on canvas, on
wood.

9. In water color, the pigments are mixed with
water and applied in a fine, white paper.
The paper shines through the paint and
makes the color brilliant. It is difficult to
produce warm, rich tones in water color.
B. Water Color

10. In fresco painting a wall is prepared with
successive coats of plaster. Designs are
prepared in advance in a large sheets of
paper, each sheets accounting for a section
of the wall.
It is accordingly a medium of a broad, bold
outlines, usually with great simplification
of form.
C. Fresco

11. Jose Clemente Orozco
Modern Migration
of the Spirit
(1932-1934)
Fresco

12. Wax was used by the
Egyptians for portraits
painted on mummy
cases. There were
several different ways
of preparing the wax,
but in general the color
was mixed in warm
wax and burned it.
D. Encaustic
Portrait of a Boy
Fayum, Lower Egypt
Encaustic on wood
panel.

13. In pastel, pigments in the
form of powders are
compressed lightly in a
sticks. Its color are
brilliant, and it is a
very flexible medium,
one in which very rich
and varied effects may
be produced.
E. Pastel
Edgar Degas
Ballet Scene (1907)
Pastel

14. Mosaic, stained glass, and tapestry are
usually classed with painting, though the
medium is not pigment. A picture im
mosaic is made by putting all together
small pieces of colored glass or stone,
called “tesserae”.
F. Mosaic

15. Theodora and Her Attendants
(ca. A.D. 525)
Mosaic

16. Like the mosaic, the stained-glass window is
a kind of patchwork it is made by
combining many small pieces of colored
glass which are held together by bands of
lead.
In a large window, the lead is reinforced by
heavy iron bars that make very heavy
black lines in the picture.
G. Stained Glass

17. Tapestries are large
fabrics in which a
design is woven by
hand. Being of very
firm texture, they
shut out the cold and
helped to preserve
the heat from the fire
place.
G. Tapestry
The Hunt of the
Unicorn
French or Flemish
Tapestry

18. Stop! Let’s Review.
Identify what medium is used in the following
paintings.
Encaustic
Fresco
Oil
Pastel

19. DRAWINGS
Drawings and prints are of special interest
to the student, both for their intrinsic
value and because they are comparatively
inexpensive.
In them, even the person of small means can
afford original works often by important
artists.

20. One of the most common because of its
general utility especially for making rapid
notes. The French artist Ingres made
many delicate and crisp pencil portraits as
one means of support while he was living
in Rome.
Pencil

21. Silverpoint
A drawing made with a gold or silver
wire on a specially prepared paper, is
often very pale in tone and has little
vitality but is very delicate and warmly
shadowy.

22. Ink
Makes a clear, crisp, often sketchy and
spontaneous line; often ink is combines
with wash.
Bister
A brown pigment made by mixing the
soot from burning wood with a little
binder.

23. Charcoal
One of the oldest mediums for drawing.
The charcoal is made by roasting wood
in a closed vessel. This medium is
capable of a great variety of tones from
the darkest to the very light.

24. Chalk
Another medium that has been used
from the earliest times. It is found in
white, black, and red. The red was
especially desired for figure sketches.

25. Prints
An engraving is in many ways the opposite
of a woodcut. In the woodcut, the parts
that are to be black are left standing, and
the remainder of the block is cut away.
In engraving, the lines of the dewsign are
cut into a metal plate; these lines are then
filled with ink andtransferred from the
plate to the paper.
A. Engraving

26. Martin Schongauer
The Annunciation
Engraving

27. Etching differs in engraving in the way the
lines are made.
In etching, the plate is covered with a
coating of a thin, waxlike material called a
“ground”.
B. Etching

28. Paul Klee
Why Does He Run?
Etching
Francisco Goya
Pobrecitas
Etching

29. The lithography is the most recent of the
four common types of print. It was
discovered just before 1800, whereas
woodcuts, engraving and etchings go back
to the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
The design is drawn on a heavy greasy
crayon on a specially prepared stone, and
ink impressions are made from it.
C. Lithography

30. George Bellows
Dempsey and
Firpo
(1924)
Lithograph

31. Checking your understanding 
1. What are the different mediums for
scuplture?
2. List down the different mediums for
painting.
3. Name at least three mediums for
drawing.
4. State the three mediums for prints.

32. Thanks 