Principles of Visual Arts

(Week 10)
Mr. John Riel B. Labiang
 Artist – is a person who exhibit
exceptional skills in the visual and
performing arts.
 Medium – art refers to the materials that
an artist uses to communicate his ideas,
feelings and imaginations.
Artists can be classified into:
 Visual artists – use the visual arts as their
venue of expression.
 Creative artists – are more adept at
writing words and arranging musical notes
to entice the imagination and evoke
emotions.
 Performing artists – express their art
through execution in front of an audience.
Examples of classification of artists
 Visual – painters, sculptors and architects.
 Creative – writer, poets, playwrights,
novelists and composers.
 Performing – dancers, singers, stage
performer, actors, musicians and
choreographers.
 Visual arts
 This art form can be perceived by the eyes, its
medium are those materials that can be seen and
occupy space. Specifically these are the:
a. Graphic or two-dimensional arts which
includes drawing, painting, mosaics, collage and
printmaking.
b. Plastic or three-dimensional arts which
includes sculpture, architecture and
installations.
 Auditory or time arts
 The medium for this art classification are
those that the viewers can hear and which
are expressed in time.
 Combined arts
 The medium for these art forms are those
that the viewers can see and hear which
considers both time and space.
 The different media of the visual arts
 Graphic or Two-Dimensional Art
Drawing – The drawing maybe a study
which is made for the sake of learning how
to execute some forms.
Whatever is the purpose for the drawing, all
visual artists use it before the actual
production of the work.
These are the different media for drawing:
❑Pencils
❑Ink
❑Pastel
❑Charcoal
❑Painting
❑Mosaic
❑Collage
❑Printmaking
 Pencils
 This is made of graphite which comes in different
hardness from soft to hard or thickness from
thick to needle-like, making possible a wide range
values.
 Pencils regardless of the brand are usually
labelled 2B, 4B, 6B which indicates the softness
of the lead.
Shading techniques in Drawing:

❑Hatching
❑Cross-hatching
❑Stippling
❑Blending
 Hatching
 Is drawing a series of thin parallel lines that
run in the same direction.
 Cross-hatching
 Is drawing a series of thin parallel lines are
criss-crossing it with another set of thin
parallel lines. This creates a tone that is
darker than hatching.
 Stippling
 Is using the sharp point of the pencil to
make dot patterns to create depth in some
parts of the drawing.
 Blending
 Is at times accomplished by using the finger
or a paper stump to gradually change the
tone from dark to light.
 Ink
 It allows for a great variety of qualities,
depending on the tools and technique used
in application.
 Pen and ink drawings are characterized by
controlled and uniform lines. Ink is used in
making the beautiful handwritings produced
in calligraphy which in itself is an art.
 Pastel
 This is composed of dry pigment held
together by gum binder and compressed
intro sticks.
 Kinds of pastel
-soft pastel, hard pastel and oil pastel.
Pastel techniques are:

❑Stippling
❑Feathering
❑Scumbling
❑Impasto
❑Sgrafitto
❑Charcoal
 Stippling
 Is using pastel of different colors to produce
small marks, thus, creating a pattern.
 Feathering
 Is using the point of the pastel to make
parallel strokes creating a feather-like effect.
 Scumbling
 Is like layering but using pastel. The side of
the pastel is lightly drawn on the top of an
existing color but still making the color of
the first layer visible.
 Impasto
 Is the technique of thickly applying the
pastel by pressing it hard on the paper
creating an opaque effect.
 Sgrafitto
 Is applying a thick deposit of pastel on the
support then using a blunt pen, scrapes it off
to reveal the underlying color and create the
design. This technique works beautifully for
oil pastel.
 Charcoal
 This is an organic medium that comes from
burnt wood.
 2 kinds of charcoal: The compressed
charcoal or manufactured charcoal is made
from loose charcoal mixed with a binder
and pressed into sticks; the other is the vine
charcoal which comes in thin sticks that is
easy to blend and erase.
 Paper
 This is the most common surface used in
two-dimensional art.
 Paper is an organic material made from
wood, grass and linen ranges.
 The cellulose pulp from these sources
undergo a process that produces sheets or
rolls of paper is smooth, cold-pressed paper
has moderate texture and the rough paper
has the most texture.
 Painting
 Painting has been described as the art of
creating beautiful effects on a flat surface.
 It is the process of applying paint onto a
smooth surface (ground/support) like
paper, cloth, canvas, wood or plaster.
The following are the different media for
painting:

❑Watercolor
❑Gouache
❑Oil paints
❑Tempera
❑Fresco
❑Acrylic
 Watercolor
 The pigments are mixed with water and
applied paper. The colors are applied in
layers and made brighter by additional
applications after the first layer had dried.
This is called layering.
 Gouache
 This is paint in which the pigment has been
mixed with water and added with a chalk-
like material to give it an opaque effect.
 Oil paints.
 The pigments are mixed with oil as its
binder. This medium was discovered by
Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck in the 15th
century.
 Tempera
 This pigment mixed with egg yolk
(sometimes with the white) as binder.
Sometimes gum or glue is used in place of
egg. The ideal surface for tempera is wood.
 Fresco
 This is pigment mixed with water and applied on
a portion of the wall with wet plaster. The wet
paster allows the color to stick to the surface and
thus, becomes a permanent part of the wall.
 Acrylic
 This is a modern medium of synthetic paint using
acrylic emulsion as binder.
 Acrylic has the quick drying quality of watercolor
and is as flexible as oil paints. The versatility of
acrylic allows it to be applied to almost any type
of surface.
 Mosaic
 Mosaic are wall or floor decorations made
of small tiles or irregular cut pieces of
colored stones or glass called tesserae.
 Collage
 Is derived from a French word “coller” which
means to stick.
 A collage is a technique of making an art work
by gluing or pasting on a firm support materials
or found objects.
 Collage as a graphic art was introduced by Picasso
and Braque. Both cubist artists.
 Printmaking
 This is a process used for making
reproductions of graphic works.
 Printmaking allows for the repeated transfer
of a master image from a printing plate
(matrix) onto a surface.
 The result is an impression created by the
plate on the surface which is called a print.
 Printmaking

❑Relief Printing (Raised)

❑Intaglio Printing (Depressed)
❑Surface Printing (Flat)
 Relief Printing (Raised)
 This is the oldest method of printmaking
 The technique involves cutting away (using knives
or gouges) certain parts of the surface, usually a
block of wood and leaving the ‘raised’ parts to
produce the image.
 Woodcut and wood engraving uses this
technique.
 Intaglio Printing (Depressed)
 This technique is the opposite of relief printing;
instead of using the surface of the plate for the
image, the lines of the image are cut or incised to
a metal plate.
 The incised or ‘depressed’ part is the image.
 Surface Printing (Flat)
 This includes all processes in which printing
is done from a flat surface (plane).
 Example of this type is serigraphy or
silkscreen printing.
Activity:
 Take a picture of a tree using your camera phone
and draw this image on an Oslo paper using your
graphite pencil. Use a combination of the shading
techniques.
 You may add color to your work using any of the
medium and techniques discussed. Give your
work a title and present this to the class.
Life is Art live yours in color ☺
ThankYou!