Painting is a visual art medium in which pigments are applied to a solid surface, traditionally canvas, paper or wood. The artwork can be either representational (depicting recognizable subjects) or abstract (smoothed shapes, lines and tones without any direct representation). It is a universal expressive language that communicates a multitude of ideas through the use of shape, color and line to produce sensations of movement, volume, space and light.
While some paintings may be purely abstract, the majority are used to represent natural scenes and objects or tell a story. In addition, a painting can be an exploration of the nature of art itself by making a comment on social or cultural issues, such as the role of women or war, or by exploring contemporary art trends.
Painters use a wide range of tools to create their work. A brush is the most common tool, but a palette knife and sponges can also be used to apply and manipulate the paint. The pigments are usually suspended in a binder, such as oil, acrylic, alkyd or water color. The pigments can be of mineral, vegetable or animal origin, and they can also be synthetic.
It is important for the painter to learn about the properties of different types of paint and how they behave under different conditions. Some pigments are sensitive to acids, bases and UV light, which will affect their longevity. The durability of a painting depends largely on the care and handling.
A painter should be able to make judgments about the quality of their work and know how it compares with other paintings they have seen. This will allow them to identify any areas in need of improvement or correction and avoid repeating bad habits. It is advisable for new painters to watch professional artists paint. It is possible to pick up a number of bad habits, such as poor brush technique, which will be very difficult to correct once they become ingrained in the way you paint.
When you are working with a painting, it is a good idea to keep a sketchbook and pen and pencil handy, so that you can draw a rough outline of where the shapes will go in your painting. This will help to establish the composition and ensure that your proportions are accurate. The sketch can be quite loose and doesn’t need to be completely accurate, but it will help you to determine the best placement for your luscious colors!
Often, beginner painters don’t use enough values in their work. Values are the lightness or darkness of a color. The more value in your painting, the more realistic it will be. It is also helpful to think of a colour in terms of its hue, shade and value, as this will help you to understand the way that different colours interact with each other. The Impressionists, including Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet, used this technique to capture the fleeting effects of light on colors in nature.