Each of the major paint types give different results and have great differences in the end effects. Choosing the best medium to work with can make your art vibrant and alive.

 There are many more types of paint that could be used but amateur artists stick mainly to acrylic, oil and water based paints whilst pastel and the increasingly popular watercolor pencil give a degree of flexibility when it comes to drawing, they give the feel of a painted surface while keeping the fluidity of drawing. Other examples of different mediums are tempera, encaustic and gouache and other more specific paints that are used when painting on silk or other fabrics which use heat to keep them fast.

A brief list of the major paints:

Acrylic: This is a quick drying paint which can be slowed down by adding water-spray to a canvas or other retarding agent, giving you more freedom with time. They can be painted over as they dry waterproof and will not disturb the lower layers, however once they dry they cannot be changed and no amount of water will change this. Can be used thickly like oil based,impasto, or thinly like watercolors. Can be used as a glue for collage or for murals due to its water resistant nature. Difficult to remove from a brush if dried on except when diluted then the colors will appear darker.

Oil: A very slow drying paint allowing for tonal work and shading and allows the artist to cover more canvas area at the same time. Once dried over-painting layers is no problem and the intensity of the colors will remain steadfast with age. Can be used either as a thick or thin glaze, and the beauty of working with one of the great mediums draws many artists to oil. Only dangers with oil based paints are that the area must be well ventilated as there are solvents involved and once a piece is complete it will take several months before a varnish can be applied. Cleanup of brushes requires white-spirit or similar solvents.

Watercolors: Applying water to the brush and the watercolor block or pan they are a great medium as they can be lifted off canvas by simple re-wetting. Due to the transparent nature of watercolors a mistake will be glaringly noticeable and due care and attention should be given to your brushstroke and how to use tone as colors will be lighter when dry than when applied. You must also use the natural white of the canvas for a color as no white is made true enough. If a watercolor paint becomes dried then simple wetting the block will bring it back to life.

Pastels: No time can be wasted when using pastels. You will generally need a greater range of colors than you would with the other mediums as you will mix the colors on the paper and not with a pallette. A wide range of colors and degrees of pastel softness exist but softer pastels can become smudgy and making the color fall away from the support, which can be remedied by spray on fixative agents, overlaid tracing paper or a framed mount, these all aid in pastel work. The greatest help of pastels is that no brushes need cleaning and no studio to clean. They can also be blended with turpentine if oil-based and also scrapped of to reveal the layers underneath, commonly known as sgraffito.

Other considerations are cost and toxicity. In cost, watercolors are the cheapest and are easily replaced. The only supplies needed are basic color sets and simple brushes to use, paper and a board if you need to stretch the paper. Pastels and acrylic are next with price but Oil paints are more costly and some colors can be very expensive. Choose your medium wisely!

The next point is toxicity. Oil based paints require solvents; however there are now low-odor versions and even water-based oil paints. Pastels, especially soft ones can leave a lot of dust and you should be aware of how much dust they shed, don’t blow loose dust off your canvas. Some pigments like Cadmium Red are poisonous but can be bought in non-toxic hues. In all cases make sure that children are nowhere near solvents or paint fumes and keep the area you work in well ventilated.

The choice of your perfect medium can be trial and error and you should experiment, mix the different styles and paint mediums, seek guidance online or from local accredited colleges. See what’s out there and what works for you and you can create great art in no time.

• Prime pigment or hiding pigment
• Inert pigment or extender pigment

• The first type is known as organic and
• The second is known as inorganic type.

• Natural and
• Synthetic.

Normal paints available in the market also contain certain other chemical substances. These paints are available in form of tubes or in other packing material. These substances can affect the quality of the paintings. Therefore many artists prefer to make their own paints by mixing the base substance and pigment. The process is not very difficult, provided you learn it properly once. An artist can produce oil paints by mixing linseed oil and a pigment. The color of the paint depends on the color of the pigment which is being used.

Then there is another kind of paint used extensively by the artists for paintings. It is known as acrylic paint. There is an emulsion known as the acrylic polymer emulsion. This emulsion is binds the acrylics. To produce acrylic paint the acrylic polymer emulsion is mixed thoroughly with water and a colored pigment is also added to it. The acrylics have a tendency to dry up rapidly. This is a limitation on the mixing time. It dictates that very less mixing time is available to mix the base, pigment and acrylic polymer emulsion.

There are pigments like watercolor and Gouache. These pigments are mixed with base like Gum Arabic. Gum Arabic is a medium for watercolors. It helps in bringing more transparency and also assists in increasing the drying time. The use of pigments was increased when the acrylic and oil paints were used extensively. This was around 20^th century. Since then pigments have been used with numerous bases to produce paints of different colors and types.

1. Washes. Flat wash is a watercolor technique. It is the most basic technique. To produce it the area of the paper which is required to be covered using the wash is wetted and then pigment is added to it. The pigment is applied onto the surface top down. The surfaces are sloping and the bands overlap horizontally. The wash is left to dry up after it has been completed. Then there is a technique used known as graded wash and in this technique the pigment needs to be diluted with water. Thus more dilution is required for each of the horizontal strokes. As a result there is a gradual fade out of the wash.
2. Glazing. It is somewhat similar to washes. The pigment used is thinner. It is applied over dry washes. In this way the tone and color of the underlying washes is adjusted. Certain pigments which are ideal to be used for glazing are:-
   1. Rose madder
   2. Cobalt blue
   3. Auroline

        These pigments are transparent and are also non-staining.

3. Wet in Wet. In this process a wet paper is used on which a pigment is applied. Existing washes is one place where this technique can be employed, provided the washes are dried thoroughly. Wet in wet technique makes soft marks and these can be applied to your painting for subtle backgrounds.
4. Dry Brush. The opposite technique of wet in wet is the dry brush. Pigment is loaded onto a brush and dragged on dry paper. Very hard edged marks are produced. The marks produced are also very crisp. Centre of interest is the place where these marks should be applied.
5. Lifting Off. After the pigment has dried it can be lifted off and also dissolved. For this technique it is advised to avoid staining colors like blue and yellow. The process is simple and produces hard edged shapes and lines.
6. Dropping in Color. In this technique color is introduced to a region of the painting which is wet. Then it is permitted to feather out and bleed without any interruption. It at times produces results which are unexpected. The color gradations produced are quite vibrant and interesting. A pigment is mixed on the palette to achieve this.

To achieve the best desired results for these techniques of art and watercolors, the artists can use various kinds of art supplies. Each has its own distinct mark and effect on the type of painting it is being used for.

The pastels we commonly use today are made of pigments produced in laboratories. These pigments are mixed with a binder, usually methyl cellulose, to form a paste. This mixture is then rolled to give the shape of a pencil or a stick and allowed to dry. The binder used in pastels sets the pastels apart from other medium of coloring such as oil, watercolor etc. The most common binders in use are eggs, oil and gum Arabic. Although the amount used to bind the pigment is very nominal but it is an essential part of the process.

Although, Leonardo da Vinci has used pastels as part of his arts during the 15^th century,  it was not until 1675 when a painting was made exclusively of pastels. The pioneer in the field was Rosabella Carriera. Today, pastels can be easily found in the following four forms:

1. Pencil
2. Hard pastels
3. Soft pastels
4. Oil

Most of the artists usually use pastel pencils and hard pastels for preliminary drawing and for the purpose of adding details. These are usually used in producing the first layer of the painting due to the brightness and hardness of the pigments in this form. Also, if the artist wants to go back in to add a bit more detail to the lines of the painting, he is going to use hard pastel or pastel pencil. However, extensive use of hard pastel can result in lifting of the soft pastel from the layers.

The soft pastels are available in different price range. The price of this pastel depends entirely on the softness of the pastel. This is due to the reason that softer pastels have more pigment in them, thus contributing to the high price of the product. And if you are using pastels in oil form then you will realize that they will have an entirely different effect then any other forms of pastel, bringing a unique look to your painting.

However, you must keep in mind that you will need to use a paper that has some tooth to its name. This type of paper is preferred for pastel painting as it helps in holding the pastels to the paper surface. There is a wide variety of papers available in the stores that are made solely for use of pastel painting. The price ranges from $1 to as high as $20 per sheet.

A finished art piece of a pastel painting is always in high demand as it produces shimmering effect of light through layers after layers of efforts put in by the artist to bring the right effect to the painting.

• Prime pigment or hiding pigment
• Inert pigment or extender pigment

• The first type is known as organic and
• The second is known as inorganic type.

• Natural and
• Synthetic.

Normal paints available in the market also contain certain other chemical substances. These paints are available in form of tubes or in other packing material. These substances can affect the quality of the paintings. Therefore many artists prefer to make their own paints by mixing the base substance and pigment. The process is not very difficult, provided you learn it properly once. An artist can produce oil paints by mixing linseed oil and a pigment. The color of the paint depends on the color of the pigment which is being used.

There are pigments like watercolor and Gouache. These pigments are mixed with base like Gum Arabic. Gum Arabic is a medium for watercolors. It helps in bringing more transparency and also assists in increasing the drying time. The use of pigments was increased when the acrylic and oil paints were used extensively. This was around 20^th century. Since then pigments have been used with numerous bases to produce paints of different colors and types.

Oil Paints. T is a paint which dries slowly. In this paint the drying oil consists of pigment particles of small size. These pigment particles are suspended in the oil. For decoration purposes the oil paints were used as early as 13^th century but they were extensively used for the purpose of painting around 15^th century. Nowadays the oil paints are used for domestic purposes on a very large scale. The oil paints are available in luminous colors they are tough paints i.e. they have the ability to resist extensive wear. These characteristics have raised the demand of the oil paints to be used for both exterior and interior painting.

Acrylic paints. Acrylic paint consists of an acrylic polymer solution and the pigment is suspended in it. The paint is a fast drying one. When dry these pants are water resistant. These paints can be diluted by mixing them with water. An acrylic painting may resemble an oil painting or watercolor painting. It may also have its own distinct characteristics. These characteristics are hard o attain with any other medium. Its main difference from the oil paints is the drying time. It takes less and oil paint takes more time to dry up. Less pigment is absorbed by the acrylic paints as compared to the oil paints. These paints are very stable and in their history there has not been a single case where the acrylic paints might have faltered.

Watercolor Painting. It is known as Aquarelle in French. The paints are produced when a water soluble vehicle contains pigments suspended in it. Paper is the most common support for a watercolor and it is also the most traditional. It can also have supports like bark paper, papyrus, vellum, plastics, canvas, fabric and wood. In Eastern Asia it is known as brush painting and has also got traditional roots in India, Japan and China etc. It has four main constituents namely additives, colorant, binder and solvent.

Painting With Pastels. Pastels are available in the form of a stick and they are an artwork medium. It consists of a binder and a pigment that is powdered. The pigment used in the pastels and the ones used for producing other paint mediums are the same. The word pastel is used in very forms. When used as a noun it means pastel artwork, when used as a verb it refers to the process of artwork production and as an adjective it means pale color.

Mixed media Painting. It is a fact that oil, wax and water do not mix. This can be used to an advantage when there is a need to retain the white of the paper by masking out. It can also be used to retain the color beneath. This process also creates very interesting textures.

There are three basic colors – red, yellow and blue – all of these colors combine together to make other colors. Whether you wish to achieve violet or green combine two or more of the basic colors and you will get your desired results. But you must keep in mind that colors are not only meant to add effect to the painting, each color have a purpose in the world of arts. Colors are used to convey emotions and moods. For example dark colors like black, gray etc are meant to convey gloom whereas red stands for blood shed as well as love. The painting depends upon the choice of colors to completely convey the message of the painter to the general public. There are many books available in market that can be helpful in the matter. Also, different sectors also arrange workshops and seminars to provide guidance. These workshops and seminars prove to be helpful in giving advices on how to use the colors, how to improve your painting abilities as well as offer you techniques that can be useful.

The colors are generally arranged in the form of a color wheel to help in understanding the relationship that different colors have with one another. This color wheel includes three basic/primary colors, three secondary colors and six tertiary colors.

• Secondary colors are acquired by mixing of two basic or primary colors. These are violet, orange and green
• Tertiary colors are six in total and are a result of combination of one primary color with two secondary colors. Green-Blue, Blue Violet, Red-orange, Violet-Red, Orange-Yellow and Yellow-Green are the six tertiary colors.

·         The colors that are exactly opposite to one another in the color wheel are the complimentary colors

·         Analogous colors usually dominate the painting and are the three adjacent colors from the same family

·         Colors like red, orange and yellow are classified as the warm colors on the color wheel

·         The cool colors of the color wheel include green, blue and violets