Art and Design: Fine Art - 4FA1 PearsonEdexcel

Painting

Overview

All paint is the same idea: coloured powder held in a glue. Change the glue and you change everything, because the binder decides how fast the paint dries, whether light passes through it or bounces off it, whether you can move it tomorrow, and whether the mark you just made will still be there when it is dry. Gouache, watercolour, acrylic, oil and dye are five different glues, and a painter who knows which one they are holding is already ahead.

This note is about paint behaving. It covers the support and the ground you paint onto, the order of layers and why fat goes over lean, the difference between a glaze and a scumble and what each does to light, mixing with a limited palette so your colour stays alive, and the choice between building a painting over weeks and finishing it in one sitting. It ends with the brushstroke itself, which in fine art is never merely a way of delivering the image: a mark can describe a cheekbone and record the second and a half it took to make, at the same time. Painters working in oil, acrylic, watercolour, diluted wash and ink on bark cloth and on absorbent paper show what those decisions look like when someone means them.

Objectives

Use expressive and descriptive mark-making to record and communicate ideas
Use a range of painting materials, tools and techniques such as gouache, watercolour, acrylic, oil, dyes, brushes, digital painting applications and a range of painting surfaces

Lesson Note

Every paint is a pigment plus a binder, sometimes with a solvent or extender added. The pigment supplies the colour and is often identical across products: the same ultramarine powder goes into watercolour, gouache, acrylic and oil. What differs is what holds it to the surface. Gum arabic makes watercolour, gum arabic plus chalk makes gouache, an acrylic polymer emulsion makes acrylic, and a drying oil such as linseed makes oil paint. Everything a painter complains about, and everything a painter exploits, comes from the binder.

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Lesson Evaluation

Congratulations on completing the lesson on Painting. Now that youve explored the key concepts and ideas, its time to put your knowledge to the test. This section offers a variety of practice questions designed to reinforce your understanding and help you gauge your grasp of the material.

You will encounter a mix of question types, including multiple-choice questions, short answer questions, and essay questions. Each question is thoughtfully crafted to assess different aspects of your knowledge and critical thinking skills.

Use this evaluation section as an opportunity to reinforce your understanding of the topic and to identify any areas where you may need additional study. Don't be discouraged by any challenges you encounter; instead, view them as opportunities for growth and improvement.

Which property of watercolour means highlights must be planned and left as bare paper? A) It dries very slowly B) It is transparent and cannot be applied light over dark C) It contains chalk D) It is waterproof once dry Answer: B
The rule fat over lean in oil painting exists to prevent: A) Colours drying duller than they looked wet B) The upper layers cracking as they dry faster than the layers beneath C) Pigment sinking into the support D) Brushmarks remaining visible Answer: B
A stroke made with one loaded brush and not reloaded starts fat and wet, thins, and finally breaks into speckle. Why? A) The bristles change shape as they move B) The paint reservoir in the brush is used up as the stroke travels C) Pressure always increases along a stroke D) The support absorbs more at the end Answer: B
Why does mixing cadmium red with phthalo blue give a dull brown rather than a clean violet? A) The pigments are chemically incompatible B) Cadmium red leans orange and phthalo blue leans green, so all three primaries end up in the mixture C) Phthalo blue is too strong D) Violet cannot be mixed, only bought Answer: B
What is the ground in a painting? A) The physical object being painted on B) The prepared coating applied to the support before painting C) The darkest tone in the composition D) The lower part of the composition Answer: B