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Acrylic medium is the same formulation as acrylic paint, minus the pigment. It can be used as a paint additive, an adhesive, and a texturizer. It also can be used to create image transfers. It comes in three basic weights (medium, gel, and paste) and two finishes (matte and gloss). The different weights and finishes are inter-mixable, so you if you cannot find exactly what you need, or you are on a budget, you can create it using two or more products.

Medium is the thinnest of the acrylic mediums. It is easily pourable, with a consistency like that of cream. It works well as an adhesive and for creating image transfers. It can also be added directly to acrylic paints, to extend them or to alter the consistency, transparency, and finish.

Gel is thicker than medium. It is pourable, with a consistency like that of thin yogurt or kiefer. It works well as an adhesive and for creating image transfers. Gel can also be added directly to paint to alter consistency and transparency. It can also be applied to the surface prior to painting, to create texture.

Paste is the thickest of the acrylic mediums. It is too thick to pour, with a consistency like pudding. Depending on the manufacturer, it may be called either molding paste or modeling paste. While mediums and gels dry clear, paste may contain fillers that make it opaque. Paste is a good way to build up surface texture, prior to painting. It can also be mixed with acrylic paints, though be aware that its opacity will alter the look of the paint.

An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that sprays various media including ink and dye, but most often paint by a process of nebulization. Spray guns developed from the airbrush and are still considered a type of airbrush.

Both children and adults enjoy arts and crafts. Children in schools may learn skills such as woodworking, wood carving, sewing, or making things with all sorts of material. Many community centres and schools have evening or day classes and workshops where one can learn arts and craft skills

Paintbrushes are used for applying ink or paint. These brushes are usually made by clamping the bristles to a handle with a ferrule.

Short handled brushes are for watercolor or ink painting while the long handled brushes are for oil or acrylic paint. The styles of brush tip seen most commonly are:

• Round: Long closely arranged bristles for detail
• Flat: For spreading paint quickly and evenly over a surface. They will have longer hairs than their Bright counterpart.
• Bright: Flat brushes with short stiff bristles, good for driving paint into the weave of a canvas in thinner paint applications, as well as thicker painting styles like impasto work.
• Filbert: Flat brushes with domed ends. They allow good coverage and the ability to perform some detail work.
• Fan: For blending broad areas of paint.
• Angle: Like the Filbert, these are versatile and can be applied in both general painting application as well as some detail work.
• Mop: A larger format brush with a rounded edge for broad soft paint application as well as for getting thinner glazes over existing drying layers of paint without damaging lower layers.
• Rigger: Round brushes with longish hairs, traditionally used for painting the rigging in pictures of ships. They are useful for fine lines and are versatile for both oils and watercolors.

THE STRUCTURE OF AN ARTIST PAINT BRUSH

The artist paint brushes used for oil painting consist of the ferrule, the handle and the bristles. The ideal material for the handle is a hardwood from one of the deciduous species of tree. A particularly suitable type of wood is beech, which has a very low water uptake.  This means that the wood keeps its shape, and a good connection between the handle and the ferrule can be maintained.

The ferrule on a high-quality brush must be free of welds or joints, made of copper or brass and fit snugly around the handle, so that there are no air-pockets between the two. The bristles are the working part of the brush and, it’s fair to say, the most important part, for it is based on the bristles that an artist selects the right brush for any given painting. They may be made of natural materials or synthetic fibres, and they come in various shapes and sizes.

HOW TO CHOOSE A BRUSH DEPENDING ON THE MATERIAL

Brushes made with natural bristles

These are the most common brushes and the ones most often used by artists. They are made of hog’s hair and are considered to be among the best kinds of brush for oil painting. Natural bristles pick up the paint very well and apply the load to the canvas well. Making a brush with natural bristles is a fairly complicated procedure. The bristles are boiled and bleached and then any split ends are removed.

Kolinsky sable-hair brushes

A kolinsky is a small carnivorous animal, similar to a ferret. These brushes, like those made of hog’s hair, are natural paintbrushes and are commonly used to create watercolours and oil paintings. Sable-hair brushes are usually used by artists who like to paint in thin, translucent layers. Sable-hair brushes provide soft, subtle strokes, making them ideally suited for portrait-painting and for all the fine detail in a painting. Artist brushes made of sable-hair will last a long time, if you use a fine-grained canvas. When using a medium-grained canvas, meanwhile, you’ll find you can wipe off any stray bristles from the brush more quickly. Natural sable-hair brushes are also suitable for the ‘drybrush’ painting technique.

Synthetic brushes

One hears various things said about synthetic brushes for oil painting, and the feedback about them is mixed. With the emergence of good-quality brushes made with synthetic fibres, however, novice painters are increasingly shunning brushes with natural bristles. Good synthetic brushes can sometimes be on a par with natural brushes. Synthetic brushes are now available with varying degrees of bristle thickness, enabling artists to choose their brush depending on the task at hand. Thick synthetic bristles are suitable for doing the undercoat and for the fast alla prima painting technique (as are brushes made of natural bristles). Thin synthetic bristles, on the other hand, are similar to natural sable-hair brushes. They can be used to paint paintings consisting of lots of thin layers. By comparison with brushes made of hog’s hair and sable-hair, synthetic brushes have both upsides and downsides. The bristles don’t fall out of them. They are easier to look after (thinning agents, diluents and linseed oil all affect natural brushes in different ways). They last longer and are suitable for any canvas, however finely or coarsely grained. Some brushes made with synthetic fibres may lose their shape over time and become bushy. There are loads of suggestions to be found on the Internet, though, about how to solve this problem and get the brush back to its original shape.

Squirrel-hair brushes

These brushes are not used in oil painting, or at least not widely used. Some artists use these brushes to lend a light tint to the paint. This is purely a matter of personal preference and habit, though. Squirrel-hair brushes are perfect for painting with watercolours, but when used with oil they quickly become unfit for use. Paintbrushes are among the most important tools of all in an artist’s hands. But an even more important factor is whether the artist knows how to use them and look after them.

Extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, backpacks, and other functions where sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used as a painting surface, typically stretched.

Early canvas was made of linen, sturdy brownish fabric of considerable strength. Linen is particularly suitable for the use of oil paint. In the early 20th century, cotton canvas, often referred to as "cotton duck", came into use. Linen is composed of higher quality material, and remains popular with many professional artists, especially those who work with oil paint. Cotton duck, which stretches more fully and has an even, mechanical weave, offers a more economical alternative. The advent of acrylic paint has greatly increased the popularity and use of cotton duck canvas. Linen and cotton derive from two entirely different plants, the flax plant and the cotton plant.

Artists' charcoal is a form of dry art medium made of finely ground organic materials that are held together by a gum or wax binder or produced without the use of binders by eliminating the oxygen inside the material during the production process. These charcoals are often used by artists for their versatile properties, such as the rough texture that leaves marks less permanent than other art media.^[2] Charcoal can produce lines that are very light or intensely black, while being easily removable, yet vulnerable to leaving stains on paper. The dry medium can be applied to almost any surface from smooth to very coarse. Fixatives are often used with charcoal drawings to solidify the position to prevent erasing or rubbing off of charcoal dusts.

A colored pencil (American English), coloured pencil (Commonwealth English), pencil crayon, lead or coloured/colouring lead (Canadian English, Newfoundland English) is an art medium constructed of a narrow, pigmented core encased in a wooden cylindrical case. Unlike graphite and charcoal pencils, colored pencils’ cores are wax- or oil-based and contain varying proportions of pigments, additives, and binding agents. Water-soluble (watercolor) pencils and pastel pencils are also manufactured as well as colored leads for mechanical pencils.

Colored pencils vary greatly in terms of quality and usability; concentration of pigments in the core, lightfastness of the pigments, durability of the colored pencil, and softness of the lead are some indicators of a brand’s quality and, consequently, its market price. There is no general quality difference between wax/oil-based and water-soluble colored pencils, although some manufacturers rate their water-soluble pencils as less lightfast than their similar wax/oil-based pencils. The rising popularity of colored pencils as an art medium sparked the beginning of the Colored Pencil Society of America (CPSA). According to its website, “[CPSA] was founded in 1990 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to artists over 18 years of age working with colored pencil”. The CPSA not only promotes colored pencil art as fine art, but also strives to set lightfastness standards for colored pencil manufacturers. Other countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and Mexico – among many others – have formed their own organizations and societies for colored pencil artists. Colored pencils are commonly stored in pencil cases to prevent damage.

Despite colored pencils' existence of more than a century, the art world has greatly treated the medium with less admiration and even disdain compared to other art mediums. However, the discovery of new techniques and methods and the formation of authoritative organizations is better enabling colored pencils to compete with other mediums. Additionally, colored pencils are more affordable, cleaner, and simpler compared to other mediums.

Easel refers to a portable stand or frame commonly of wood serving required to hold a canvas upright for the painter’s convenience or for the sake of displaying something. Easel Picture or an Easel Piece is essentially a painting of reasonable size as distinguished from a painting on a wall or ceiling. An easel can be of full height which can stand by itself on the floor. Shorter Easels are also in vogue which can be used on a table. Easels are usually made of wood, aluminum or steel.

French Sketch Box Easel. This easel was designed to allow painters on the go to be prepared. Made handsome, quality elm wood with long-lasting hardware, it folds to a compact size and doubles as a carrier for a wet canvas.

If something like a picture or a piece of art is valuable to you and you are proud to be part of it or be associated with it, then it needs to be framed and hung somewhere in your home for display. Some people opt to simply buy a picture frame from a home decor or craft store and hang it with a nail, while others find it enticing to frame their own pictures. The process may take several hours, and requires several tools and other picture hanging materials, but the final outcome will be something extravagant and personal.

Modern acrylic "gesso" is actually a combination of calcium carbonate with an acrylic polymer medium latex, a pigment and other chemicals that ensure flexibility, and ensure long archival life. It is sold premixed for both sizing and priming a canvas for painting. While it does contain calcium carbonate (CaCO3) to increase the absorbency of the primer coat, Titanium dioxide or titanium white is often added as the whitening agent. This allows the "gesso" to remain flexible enough to use on canvas. High concentrations of calcium carbonate, or substandard latex components will cause the resulting film to dry to a brittle surface susceptible to cracking. Typically, a canvas should be sized prior to being gessoed, as a sizing coat will sink into the substrate to support it as opposed to a gesso coat which is just put on top of the substrate.

Acrylic gesso can be colored, either commercially by replacing the titanium white with another pigment, such as carbon black, or by the artist directly, with the addition of an acrylic paint. Acrylic gesso can be odorous, due to the presence of ammonia and/or formaldehyde which are added in small amounts as preservatives against spoilage.

Gilding is any decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold to solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, it was traditionally silver in the West, to make silver-gilt (or vermeil) objects, but gilt-bronze is commonly used in China, and also called ormolu if it is Western. Methods of gilding include hand application and gluing, typically of gold leaf, chemical gilding, and electroplating, the last also called gold plating. Parcel-gilt (partial gilt) objects are only gilded over part of their surfaces. This may mean that all of the inside, and none of the outside, of a chalice or similar vessel is gilded, or that patterns or images are made up by using a combination of gilt and ungilted areas.

Gilding gives an object a gold appearance at a fraction of the cost of creating a solid gold object. In addition, a solid gold piece would often be too soft or too heavy for practical use. A gilt surface also does not tarnish as silver does.

Safe. Acid Free. Odour Free. The new Derivan FabricArt range of twin tipped fabric markers are an easy and safe way to decorate fabric. With a range of standard and fluorescent colours that will enhance any creative project.

These versatile twin tipped markers are perfect for decorating and adding a touch of colour and personality to most fabric surf aces. You can now customise t-shirts, jeans, shoes, cushion covers, carry bags and more with illustrations, type, drawings, thoughts or writings, quick and easy …the possibilities are infinite.

Available in a range of 13 bold colours with a double-ended tip (pointed and chisel broad) to help create lines of varying widths adding versatility and a dynamic finish to any design - use them for detailed work, to outline letters or for wide strokes of colour. They are Acid free and odour free.
New Derivan FabricArt Marker’s colours are transparent and matt when dry, they resist fading on most fabrics and are wash resist during normal wash cycles after they are heat fixed.

Application

For best results wash and iron beforehand to remove any sizing. Allow the fabric to dry. The markers will work on cotton, polyester and most fabrics. Please note that colours may not show up on dark coloured fabrics.
It is prudent to do a test piece prior to embarking on a large project.
Place the fabric to be decorated on top of a piece paper or cardboard to prevent the markers from bleeding through the cloth. If you are drawing on a T-shirt, place the paper inside the shirt, between the front and back sections. Lay the fabric out on any work surface so it is smooth. It is best to tape the edges to hold the fabric in place while you work.
Colour your material using a plenty of ink. Light marks are more likely to wash out. Saturating the fabric well will guarantee the colour will remain on the fabric. Put aside your creation to let it dry before you set the design with heat. Drying times may range from just a few minutes to an hour or more, depending on how thoroughly you have covered your fabric. Test the surface of the paint to ensure it is dry.

Heat Fixing:

Set the markers by using either an iron or clothes dryer.
Iron: With an iron on cotton setting – press over the design slowly for about 2 to 3 minutes on the reverse side of the fabric. Move the hot iron over the surface evenly.
Dryer: If you prefer to use the dryer, tumble dry on high for about an hour and a half. Tumble dry only the items you have coloured with your fabric markers in the same load to avoid staining other clothing.

Washing:

Allow 48 hrs. after fixing before washing. Gentle machine-washing in cold water is best. Do not use bleach. Hang to dry.

Resin-based thinners that allow the artist to superpose layers of paint more rapidly without the new colours soaking through to the ones underneath. They also ensure that the painting dries better to the core and increase the suppleness of the paint film over time, thus delaying the appearance of cracks. With different combinations, artists can increase or decrease the setting time, change the shading, texture and adjust the brightness and transparency of their work. When using oil paint, be careful never to paint too lean (dilute with solvents instead of mediums): when the varnish is applied, the picture varnish will fusion with the paint layer. The consequences are serious because any future varnish removal and restoration will become impossible.

Many artists today consider oil painting to be the fundamental art medium; something that a student should learn to appreciate, because of its properties and use in previous, very popular artwork. Typical qualities of oil paint include a long "open time," which means that the paint does not dry quickly. Oil paints take several weeks to dry, this allows the artist to work on a painting for many sessions. Oil paint also has a propensity to blend into surrounding paint allowing very subtle blending of colors. This medium also produced vivid color with a natural sheen and distinct contrast. Oil paints have a surface translucency similar to human skin, making it an ideal medium for portraits.

The color of oil paint derives from the small particles mixed with the carrier. Common pigment types include mineral salts such as white oxides: lead, now most often replaced by less toxic zinc and titanium, and the red to yellow cadmium pigments. Another class consists of earth types, e.g. sienna or umber. Synthetic pigments are also now available. Natural pigments have the advantage of being well understood through centuries of use but synthetics have greatly increased the spectrum available, and many are tested well for their lightfastness.

Oil stick, or oilstick, is an art medium for applying color. It is produced in a stick form similar to that of a crayon or oil pastel. It is distinguished from oil pastel, to which it may appear similar, in that theoil used is comparatively volatile, causing a skin to develop on exposed surfaces. Oil sticks are oil paint in solid form. Oil sticks are made by compressing wax and oil until it forms into an oil stick. The same basic pigments and drying oils that are used in the formulation of tube paint are combined with wax and rolled into a crayon. Oil sticks can be used to concur drawings, paintings, and sketches. It is not a common medium nor a much used medium h