Have you noticed how many types of paints there are today? There is a whole abundance that makes your eyes wide open, especially for a novice artist. If an experienced artist goes to the store to buy paint that has been “accumulated” over the years, then the situation is completely different for those who have not yet decided on it.
But fortunately, a wide range of paints allows you to choose “your” material. But only after experimenting with each of the types of paints for, which we will talk about later, can you at some specific moment understand that you have found the “same” material or materials.
Watercolor
You can start with watercolors, which belong to the group of adhesive paints. We have been familiar with watercolor paints in ditches and tubes since childhood. Its main advantage is transparency, which is why many artists fell in love with watercolors, because paintings painted in watercolors look light and bright.
The paint is easy to take on a brush and also easy to apply to paper, however, the technique of painting with watercolors is one of the most difficult, since the paint can be difficult to obey.
Renaissance masters used watercolors to develop sketches for frescoes and easel works.
A skilled artist can easily paint sketches and lyrical miniatures with this paint, conveying the unique states of nature. Also, the watercolor technique allows you to paint landscapes, still lifes and even portraits. The works of Lessuer, Raphael, Van Ostade and Rubens, painted with this paint, have survived to this day.
Acrylic
The polymer substance as a binding material for acrylic paint protects the work with its dense and durable film. Modern, simple, reliable and at the same time beautiful acrylic paint can be applied to any surface even without prior preparation. The colors and shades of acrylic are quite varied.
Both liquid and thick paints are available. The first ones are used for painting pictures with a smooth surface. Using thick acrylic you can create works with an interesting texture. Dries quickly, does not wash off and does not fade in the sun.
Acrylic allows you to work without cracking the film on moving substrates. The color does not change when dried.
Tempera
But tempera, unlike acrylic, may lose color over time. Once it dries, it cannot be washed off with water. An excellent artist's tool for painting and decorative design work. Having extensive experience, you can use any application technique and paint both on paper and on canvas primed with emulsion primer.
The white or yolk is used as a binding material. Tempera paints have the advantage of not only fast drying, but also durability.
Feel complete creative freedom with tempera paints, as applying thick layers does not affect durability. In addition, the base can be not only made of cardboard, plywood, paper or canvas, it can also be concrete, plaster, glass or synthetic linoleum.
Oil
Oil is the main material in painting, because since the 6th century, master artists have used only it. And how many masterpieces are written with oil paints!
You can work with oil calmly and for a long time, but most importantly, it is oil that allows you to create the most realistic and vibrant paintings with amazing brightness.
Everything here is to the taste of the amateur, because a layer of oil paint can be transparent and dense, thin and thick, light and dark, matte or shiny.
The binder is linseed and other natural oils, but mostly it is linseed oil.
Oil paints have good light fastness.
The consistency is thick, the color intensity is high. The colors are easy to mix together.
The ideal material for oil is, of course, canvas, especially linen, but the following materials can also be used: cardboard, paper and all wooden surfaces. Although I personally don’t like cardboard - it takes all the moisture out of the paint, it becomes dry, which is why it can form clumps.
Creating oil paintings definitely requires certain skills when working with equipment, so you can’t do it without training and gaining experience.
Gouache
This is truly amazing, simple and at the same time complex material. Gouache is painted by both children and great artists. Remember the works of Picasso and Rubens? Here are some of them painted in gouache.
With such paint you can easily correct any defect, this is where its ease lies, but the difficulty is that achieving the desired color and even tone is often a difficult task. Again, you need to experiment.
This paint is bright and water soluble. The white that is included in its composition makes it slightly pale, but velvety.
Compared to oil works, gouache is stored less. But gouache is absolutely harmless, which cannot be said about the composition in oil paint.
Gouache paints are similar to watercolors. They only differ in their opacity of color. But you cannot use watercolor techniques in this way.
Sanguine and sepia
People have been painting with these natural minerals since prehistoric times. In the form of crayons, they can be used to depict nudes, since its tone exactly matches the color of the human body.
Sepia and sanguine are applied quite easily, and shaded with the same ease. Such materials can be combined with coal, because it practically does not differ in the principle of working with sanguine and sepia, but by experimenting, you can get inspiring and interesting works.
Coal
The most popular and ancient material. With absolute accuracy it conveys the state and mood of the artist to the object. It is also easy to shade and rub like sanguine. Using charcoal can enhance the effectiveness of a painting due to its deep black color, which is good for coloring or drawing lines on parts of the face.
It is important to learn how to handle it carefully, as it is fragile and can easily get dirty. But besides this, of course, you will need knowledge of techniques with this material.
Mascara
Ink (soot) can be used to make thin (pen) and broad brush strokes. You can't remove mascara! This can be intimidating for newbies, but it's actually a plus. After all, once you get the hang of it, you can make your work much more expressive.
Pastel
An unusual type of painting material. But with the help of pastels, you can add magic and fabulousness to the picture using the appropriate technique. Essentially, these are the same crayons or pencils, and the artist does not need to mix colors on the palette.
You can see how beautiful and varied the pastel technique is by looking at the excellent works of Levitan, Dega or Sirov.
The ease of working with this material is also amazing: you can mix shades to get the desired tone directly on paper, using the same shading. Layers can overlap, and any defects can be easily masked.
Mastering the technique of working with pastels is quite simple and interesting.
Conclusion
Finally, we can say about two more colors used in painting - on ceramics And stained glass.
Stained glass. The name speaks for itself: the paint allows you to create the effect of stained glass or real colored glass. It can be solvent-based or water-based. Can be used on glass and other smooth surfaces.
Paints for ceramics characterized by their non-fluidity. With such opaque paint, you can achieve the effect of glazed ceramics using “hot” or “cold” painting techniques.
Artistic paints are made from pigments and binders plus fillers. Pigments can be mineral(inorganic) and organic. They largely determine the value artistic paints and affect their color, intensity and light fastness.
The division of artistic paints occurs according to the binder:
- Watercolor paints
- Acrylic paints
- Gouache paints
- Tempera paints
Professional paints of any type are presented in series. That is, a certain list of paints of different colors is combined under a single name. For example, “Master Class”, “Norma”.
DIFFERENCES IN ART PAINTS SERIES
The paint series is distinguished by the following consumer properties:
- The breadth of the palette. The higher the paint level, the wider its palette
- The presence of opaque, translucent and transparent paints in one color segment.
- Lightfastness of paints
- Pigment concentration. The higher the concentration, the less paint consumption
As a rule, the higher the level of paint, the more guaranteed its quality is, the more stable it is.
- The presence of foreign inclusions in the paint mass. They occur if the pigment was poorly ground with the binder
- Poor paint spreadability: it lies on the base in an uneven layer, with the formation of streaks and lack of paint
- Instability when mixed with other paints in the series: change in pigment color
- Poor consistency of paints: excessive fluidity or excessive pastiness
- Delamination of the paint mass: the pigment is separated from the binder.
- Low elasticity - cracking when drying
Working with highly artistic paint will bring you incomparable pleasure. It has exactly the consistency you need. It picks up perfectly on the brush, spreads perfectly over the base - no streaks or spots. She has a wonderful selection of colors, especially gray shades - the forest fog turns out exactly as you intended. And the high concentration of pigment allows you to use this paint very economically. And no cracking, even when rolling the canvas for transportation.
Why do some paints produce a dirty gray tint when mixed?
The less pigments are mixed to create the desired tone of paint, the purer the color of the paint is, the more durable it is, and the better the mixability of paints. Manufacturers strive to create mono-pigment paint, which contains only one pigment. In this case, the buyer can mix two or three mono-pigment paints, creating the color of paint he needs on the palette, without creating a dirty gray tint.
PRICE CATEGORIES OF PAINTS
The price of paint depends on the price of the pigment and its concentration. Pigments have the biggest impact on the price of paint. This is understandable: some pigments are literally under your feet (for example, organic soil), others are either very rare or require significant production capacity.
In Peredvizhniki, artistic paints are divided into various series intended for different customer segments:
- For professionals – highly artistic paints, segment PROS. They are made using high-quality binders and light-resistant pigments, with a high concentration of the latter, and with the minimum necessary filler.
- For students of professional art secondary schools and universities and amateur artists - segment ACADEMY. Such paints are made using high-quality binders, but without the use of expensive pigments. The pigments used have fairly high light fastness and good concentration. One of the advantages of these paints is their low prices.
- For art school students – segment START; Basically, they are made on the basis of inexpensive pigments and with a large percentage of fillers and binders, which affects the pigment concentration.
It is WRONG to say that this paint is bad and this is good. It is important to understand what problems this or that paint should solve.
SYMBOLS ON THE TUBE
Each manufacturer recommends using only paints from their own production for mixing, even from different series. In this case, the manufacturer guarantees paint compatibility, because knows for sure that they will not enter into a chemical reaction with each other. But many artists buy paints from different manufacturers and mix them together, at their own peril and risk. Most often, everything goes well.
Designations on the tube - the main characteristics of a particular paint:
Lightfastness
Each manufacturer has its own system for assessing the light fastness of paints. For example, the Winsor & Newton company uses the following light fastness system: AA (excellent light fastness), A (good light fastness, the paint is stable in most cases of use), B (average light fastness) and C (low light fastness).
From the Schmincke company five light fastness groups:
***** - very high light fastness
**** - high light fastness
*** - normal light fastness
** - low light fastness
* - low light fastness
Domestic paints are divided into three light fastness groups (the light fastness period is indicated in museum conditions):
Or *** : 100 years
Or **: 25-100 years
Or *: 10-25 years
For white this marking means:
* - strongly yellowing
** - medium yellowing
*** - non-yellowing
Transparency of paints
Opaque, opaque (Opaque: black square on tubes)
Semi-Opaque: black and white square
Translucent (Semi-Transparent: white square crossed out)
Transparent: white square.
Some firms use all 4 types of transparency, but more often they are limited to 3 types.
Color index pigment or Color-index is a universal designation for the composition and color of a pigment.
PWnn- White: White (+ number nn)
PY- Yellow: Yellow
PR- Red: Red
PV- Violet: Violet
P.B.- Blue: Blue
PG- Green: Green
PBr- Brown: Brown
PBk- Black: Black
(A) analogue (imitation) color: Advances in modern chemistry have made it possible to obtain a wide range of pigments that are not only not inferior in quality to natural ones, but often surpass them in stability, light fastness and color purity. Such paints are marked (A)/azo/hue.
On the tubes of European manufacturers you can also often see the inscription “series 1/ 2/ 3...”. It means pigment price group paints.
Manufacturers of art materials produce two types of white paint:
Zinc white has a greater degree of transparency compared to titanium white.
When zinc white is introduced into paint, the new color has a clean, transparent character. Titanium white increases the hiding power of paint. Mixed white is a cross between zinc and titanium in terms of transparency.
Environmental friendliness
- If a pigment poses a health hazard, it is either prohibited for use (for example, lead white) or permitted by obliging the manufacturer to indicate warning information on the tube or bottle.
- When using paint in aerosol cans, the buyer must remember the safety precautions: wear protective masks when spraying
Durability in the picture
The answer to this question, albeit indirectly, can be given by information about how many years this paint has been produced, i.e. How long is the life of the manufacturing brand? It also directly depends on the level of a particular series of paints, because... durability is the lightfastness and stability of the paint.
TYPES OF PACKING
What types of packaging do artistic paints come in?
- Cuvettes (for dry watercolor only)
- Tubes (liquid watercolor, oil, tempera, acrylic)
- Cans (acrylic, sketch oil)
- Aerosol cans (acrylic)
MAKE YOUR OWN PAINT
Having purchased the pigment and binder, you can make the artistic paint you need yourself.
Annotation
The history of colors probably began with the advent of man. Primitive drawings made with charcoal and sanguine (clay) have survived to this day. Cave dwellers painted on the stones what surrounded them: running animals and hunters with spears. Medieval artists also prepared their own paints by mixing pigment powders and fats. Such paints could not be stored for more than one day, since upon contact with air they oxidized and hardened.
I have been painting at the art studio for 3 years with different paints: watercolors, gouache, oil paints, pastels. These paints can be purchased at any office supply store. And modern artists do just that. But a long time ago, when there were no shops and paints were not made in factories, where did artists get paints? Currently, paints are made from chemical elements. Is it possible to make environmentally friendly paints?
Purpose of the study:
Find out what substances paints are made of, determine the advantages and disadvantages of “homemade” paints.
Research objectives:
1. Familiarize yourself with popular science, educational literature and periodicals on the topic of research;
2. Study what substances paints are made of.
3. Conduct an experiment: make paints yourself at home.
4. Compare paints made at home and bought in a store.
5. Draw a picture from the resulting paints.
Hypothesis: I assume that you can make your own paints at home, but they will be different from store-bought ones.
THEORETICAL PART
Composition of paints
Paint is a material used to impart color.
Paints consist of a pigment and a binder.
Pigment is a dry dye.
The world around us is colorful.
Ancient artists looked for material for paints right under their feet. From red and yellow clay, finely grinding it, you can get red and yellow dye, or, as artists say, pigment. Black pigment produces coal, white pigment produces chalk, azure blue or green pigment produces malachite and lapis lazuli. Metal oxides also produce green pigments.
The first blue paint made from lapis lazuli sold 1 kg for 600 francs. Paints made from natural pigments were not only of various shades, but also of amazing durability. The Pskov icon of Dmitry Solu has survived to this day. This icon is over 600 years old and is still in good condition. The Pskov master made these paints himself. Still known: Pskov greens, red cinnabar and yellow Pskov.
Currently, almost all paints are made in laboratories and factories from chemical elements. Therefore, some paints are even poisonous, for example, red cinnabar made from mercury. Purple dyes can be made from peach pits or grape skins.
Dry dye cannot stick to the canvas, so you need a binder that glues and binds the particles of dry dye into a single colored paint mass. The artists took what was at hand: oil, honey, egg, glue, wax. The closer the pigment particles are to each other, the thicker the paint. The thickness of the paint can be determined by looking at how a drop of honey or an egg spreads, or at a long-drying drop of oil, which does not even combine with water, and when drying leaves a greasy mark.
Different binders produce different paints with different names.
Glue is included in watercolors and gouache. Watercolor is a light, translucent paint that requires dilution with water. The name itself speaks about this.
Oil is part of oil paints; they are the most durable and apply thick strokes to the paper. They are stored in tubes and diluted with solvent, kerosene or turpentine.
One of the ancient painting techniques is tempera. These are paints mixed with eggs, sometimes called “egg paints”. More than two thousand years ago, tempera was obtained by mixing pigment with egg yolk, and eight hundred to five hundred years ago with egg white, to which fig juice, honey or other substances unknown to us were simultaneously added.
There was another paint, very resistant, but the recipe for its preparation is lost. This is encaustic - paint mixed with wax. Figure 1 shows the Fayum portrait. This painting is about two thousand years old, it was found in a grave, we see an expressive and bright look.
Currently, it was not possible to prepare wax-based paint.
So, I found out that paints consist of a pigment and a binder.
The process of preparing paints.
After analyzing the literature and articles on the Internet, you can describe how paints are prepared. First they look for raw materials. It can be coal, chalk, clay, lapis lazuli, malachite. Raw materials must be cleaned of foreign impurities. The materials must then be ground to powder.
Coal, chalk and clay can be crushed at home, but malachite and lapis lazuli are very hard stones and require special tools to grind them. Ancient artists ground the powder in a mortar and pestle. The resulting powder is the pigment.
Then the pigment must be mixed with a binder. The following can be used as a binder: egg, oil, water, wax, glue, honey. The paint must be mixed well so that there are no lumps. The resulting paint can be used for painting.
Having found out the composition of paints and learned about the process of preparing paints, I realized that I could make some paints myself.
PRACTICAL PART
Description of experiments
To carry out the experiments, I needed to obtain natural pigments and binders. I had clay, chalk and coal at my disposal. I designed three experiments.
Experimental design 1
1. Clean the coal from foreign impurities.
2. Grind the coal into powder.
3. Sift the powder.
4. Mix charcoal with water.
Experimental design 2
1. Clean the clay from foreign impurities.
2. Grind the clay into powder.
3. Sift the powder.
4. Mix clay with oil.
Experimental Design 3
1. Clean the chalk from foreign impurities.
2. Grind the chalk into powder.
3. Sift the powder.
4. Mix chalk with egg.
All experiments were successful, and I received black, brown and white paints. I drew a picture with brown paint.
After conducting these experiments, I wanted to try other raw materials, so I conducted several more experiments. I mixed each type of raw material with water, oil and egg, resulting in paints that were different in color and consistency.
Experimental results
Now I know what paints are made of. You can prepare some paints at home.
The resulting paints differed in consistency and quality:
Charcoal with water gave the paint a metallic tint, was easy to apply to the brush and left a bright mark on the paper, and dried quickly
Clay with oil gave a dirty brown paint, did not mix well with oil, was difficult to apply to a brush, left a greasy mark on the paper and took a long time to dry
Chalk with egg produced white paint that was easy to apply to a brush, left a thick mark on the paper, took a long time to dry, but turned out to be the most durable
The results of other experiments can be seen in the table.
The resulting paints have advantages and disadvantages: environmentally friendly, free, have natural colors, but are labor intensive, do not have bright colors and are inconvenient to store.
In addition, I painted a picture using my own paints.
So, to prepare paint, you need to mix a pigment (chalk, charcoal, clay, malachite, lapis lazuli) with a binder (oil, egg, water).
Conclusions
* The history of colors began with the advent of man.
* Painting paints consist of a pigment and a binder.
* Initially, earth, clay, coal, chalk, malachite, and lapis lazuli were used as pigments.
* Eggs, oil, water, and wax were used as a binder.
* Nowadays paints are made in laboratories and factories from chemical elements.
* During the experiments, I managed to get paints of different colors and shades and draw a picture.
Supervisor: Tarasova Natalia Gennadievna
Municipal educational institution “Elementary secondary school No. 5”
Russia, Nefteyugansk
All children love to draw and actively use all available tools - pencils, markers, paints. Let's look at popular types of paints suitable for children's art activities.
Drawing is one of the most favorite children's activities. From the moment a child has his firstset of felt-tip pensor pencils, the baby with great enthusiasm draws first random lines and scribbles, then completely meaningful plots. The most difficult visual instrument to master is paint. Let's look at the different types of paints that are used for children's drawing.
Finger paints
Paints for the youngest children who are not yet able to hold them in their handscolored children's pencilsor brushes are called finger brushes. As the name suggests, painting with such paints does not require additional tools: you can simply dip your fingers into the jars and leave marks on the paper. Finger paints are ideally suited for children: they are made from natural ingredients and are completely safe for a child if they get into the mouth. As a rule, such paints have an unpleasant taste (sour, salty, bitter), so you don’t have to worry that the child will actively lick them.
Watercolor paints
These are the most common paints for children's creativity, with which literally everyone is familiar from childhood. You can use watercolors starting from the age when a child is able to hold a brush in his hand. Watercolor paints can have 4-6 colors, and in some sets the number of colors and shades reaches three dozen. Inexpensive and accessible watercolors are the best choice for starting a creative artistic activity.
Gouache paints
Gouache is a fairly thick and oily paint that has rich colors and a denser texture compared to watercolor. Gouache paints are divided into artistic paints, intended for painting, and poster paints. Gouache is packaged in jars; sets can contain both regular paints and pearlescent or fluorescent paints, paints with glitter.
What to look for when choosing paint?
When choosing paint for painting, you should focus on the child’s age and whether he or she has certain visual skills. You should also definitely pay attention to the shelf life of the paint, its environmental friendliness and safety. For young children, experts recommend choosing paints with natural colors, which will help develop the child’s aesthetic taste.
Find out more about children's art products at
The development of creative thinking in a child begins almost from birth. Creativity and speech are inextricably linked. And the sooner parents give their baby colored pencils, paints and paper, the more harmonious the formation of personality will be.
Drawing is a fascinating and educational process. Children show interest in colorful jars of paint early. And the moment when touching a white sheet leaves a multi-colored trace causes them delight and bewilderment.
Online stores offer a variety of creative products. How to choose safe paints? After all, small children experience the world not only by touch, but also by taste. What colors are best to start introducing a child to the world of painting? What colors are best?
Paints come in different colors
You can safely give your child paints from the moment he learns to sit confidently. The main thing is to keep an eye on the young artist. The older the child, the more colors should appear in the palette. At first he will paint with his fingers. As she grows up and acquires new skills, she will learn to hold a brush and create more and more complex and meaningful drawings.
Paints for children come in the following types:
- fingered;
- gouache;
- acrylic;
- oil
It is recommended to give finger paints from an early age. They were designed just for the little ones. The baby still cannot hold a brush correctly, dip it in paint, or carefully draw on paper. With finger paints everything is simple. Dip your fingers and apply to the paper. These colors develop fine motor skills and creative thinking. Paints have a bitter taste. This was done on purpose; after tasting them, the baby will not want to eat them. They have a viscous consistency, do not run off your fingers and mix perfectly. Food coloring and flavoring additive.
You can buy gouache for your child as soon as he learns to hold a brush. These paints are used in classes in kindergarten and primary school. The thick consistency allows you to draw on paper, wood, glass and other surfaces. When a child learns to work with this type of paint, you can add a palette to the work. It is convenient to mix paints and get new shades. Natural and chemical dyes are used to make gouache. They are inedible. If your child suddenly tastes them, there is no need to panic. The paints are non-toxic.
Watercolor paints have a wide range of colors. It is better to buy watercolors for older children, from 6–7 years old. Working with them requires certain skills. The child must confidently wield a brush, control the pressure, and understand how to dilute paints with water. Watercolor is water-based paint. It fits well on paper and wood. To fully work with such paints you will need a palette.
