Russian Art: Processes and Techniques

1. Russian Art:Processes and Techniques By: Serenity Hughes

2. Drawing • Drawing is arguably the most basic of art processes. • The most common drawing media are pencil, pen and ink, charcoal, crayon, and felt-tip pens. • The most common drawing surface is paper!

3. Cool fact! • Early artists used walls of rock as their drawing surface

4. Lines in Drawing • Drawing is primarily based on the use of lines.

5. Actual Drawing techniques

6. Hard Pencils • Hard pencils will make thin, light lines.

7. Soft Pencils • Soft pencils will make thicker lines that may vary from light to dark.

8. Value and pressure • With drawing pencils (charcoal), a change in pressure will cause a change in value. • More pressure= darker values • Lighter pressure= lighter values

9. Shading Techniques

10. Hatching and Crosshatching • These two techniques are used to shade objects and create an illusion of three-dimensionality.

11. Hatching • Hatching consists of placing lines closely side by side.

12. Crosshatching • Crosshatching is when lines are criss-crossed to create shading.

13. Stippling • With this technique, the artist creates different values by making a pattern of dots. • The distance between these dots determine how dark the shading will be. • The more densely clustered the dots, the darker the shading.

14. Ink(kind of confusing)

15. Ink • Artists can thin ink to create a wash of lighter value in which the paper shows through to lighten the effect.

16. Cont. • Undiluted ink is opaque (not being able to see through, basically not transparent). • Water can be added to make the ink transparent

17. Printmaking

18. What is printmaking? • It refers to a group of mechanically aided two-dimensional processes that permit the production of multiple original artworks. • The principal printmaking process include relief prints, intaglio prints, lithographs, and screen prints.

19. Relief Printmaking • In RP, the artist cuts away parts from the surface of the plate. • The relief sections can range from thin lines to broad fields, and it is these areas, when they are inked, that will produce the image. • Ink is then rolled over the surface of the plate with a brayer, and paper is placed over the inked plate. • The plate and paper are then put into a press or rubbed with a burnisher to force the ink onto the paper.

20. RP video • http://vimeo.com/6584849

21. Intaglio Printmaking • In the IP process, lines are incised on the wood or soft metal plate. • Carving tools are used to cut lines into the surface of the plate in a process called engraving. • Another IP process is etching, in which the design is incised through a layer of wax or varnish applied to the surface of the metal plate.

22. IP video • http://vimeo.com/19151228

23. Lithography • This is a process in which the image is drawn with a waxy pencil or crayon directly on a plate, which can be made of stone, zinc, or aluminum. • The greasy image is hardened, and the plate is saturated with water. • The image is picked up on the paper when the plate is moved through a press.

24. Lithography • http://vimeo.com/24256585

25. A little bit of History • During the Mexican Revolution, printmaking became a medium produced cheaply and in great numbers. • Printmaking techniques have been used in the print industry for illustrating newspapers and books since the development of the printing press in the 15th century.

26. Painting

27. Paint is composed of three different materials: pigments, binders, and solvents.

28. Pigments • Pigments are finely ground materials that may be natural or synthetic. • Natural pigments include clays, gemstones, and minerals, as well as plant and insect materials that make color when powdered. • These are then mixed with binders that holds the grains of pigments together. • Example of binders are egg yolks, linseed oil, and wax. • A solvent such as water or oil can be added to change the consistency of the paint or alter its drying time.

29. Surfaces in which paint can be applied to • Paint can be applied to a surface with many different tools. • Fingers, sticks, palette knives, and paintbrushes. • Examples are boards, paper, canvas, and plaster walls.

30. The fresco • The fresco technique is usually used to paint on walls or ceilings. • The artists mixes pure powdered pigments with water and applies them to a wet plaster ground.

31. Fresco secco • If the artist uses this technique he or she will apply paints to dry rather than wet the plaster.

32. Cont. • Frescoes have been found in the ruins in Pompeii and in many medieval and Renaissance churches. • Diego Rivera a famous Mexican muralist of the early 20th century, used this technique for his murals in Mexico and in the United States.

33. Kanye West and fresco • Kanye West’s “Power” music video was created based off of Michelangelo • http://vimeo.com/15393889

34. Tempera • Tempera is a water based paint. • Traditional Tempera paint uses egg as a binder, has been used throughout history. • Tempera painting requires great skill, and they dry quickly. • Colors are either light or dark, and it cannot achieve the close imitation of natural effects that oil paints can.

35. Oil Paints • Oil paints are much more versatile than tempera paints. • Oil paints can be easily mixed, and they may be thinned to build up layers of delicate glazes. • Oils can be applied thickly and with heavy lumps to make an impasto surface (the process or technique of laying on paint or pigment thickly so that it stands out from a surface). • Since oils dry slowly, it is possible for an artist to work on an oil painting over a long period of time (days or even weeks).

36. Encaustic • Colored molten wax is fused with the surface via the application of hot irons. • In ancient Egypt, grave markers were painted with this wax based paint.

37. Gouache • A water-based paint that is similar to tempera, but of higher quality. • Has more body and dries more slowly • Is good for creating bright colors and meticulous details • Is often used for design and fine artwork

38. Watercolor • The most common water-based paint • Watercolors are transparent • The lightest colors are applied first, and then the darker colors, working from background to foreground. • White paint is rarely used

39. Acrylic Paint • Made from synthetic materials, plastics, and polymers. • Acrylic Paint was created after WWII • They do not require careful and slow building up between layers • Acrylic paint offers a valuable alternative to artists who are allergic to oil paint.

40. Photography • Photography was developed during the mid-19th century • Photography led many artist to untimely feel less of a need to confine themselves to a naturalistic style of painting, and were encouraged to explore various forms of art that were entirely beyond the reach in photography.

41. Sculpture • Sculpture is created in four basic ways: carving, modeling, casting, and construction.

42. Carving • Carving is a subtractive process in which some of the original material is removed.

43. Modeling • A soft, workable material like clay, wax, plaster, or paper-mache is formed by hand. • Amounts of these materials can be added to the surface, and the surface can be shaped and decorated by hand or with simple tools.

44. Mixed Media • The name given to a category of artworks in which the artist uses several art media. • MM works can be either 2 or 3 dimensional. • Robert Rauschenberg is known for his MM pieces that combine silkscreen images with paint. • Joseph Cornell is a 20th century artist who filled open boxes with a variety of objects that visually created symbolic and metaphoric statements.

45. Architecture • The art and science of designing and constructing buildings. • In early times, sticks, mud, grass, animal skins, ice, and wood were used to construct building. • Later, brick and stone were used.

46. Post-and-lintel construction • A long stone or wooden beam is placed horizontally across upright posts. Greek Parthenon

47. Cont. • During the Industrial Revolution, many new materials and processes for building were developed.

48. Glass Walls • Crystal Palace • Held in place by a framework of slim, iron rods.

49. Antonio Gaudi • Created an ingenious buildings of cut stone in Spain in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

50. Few more Facts • The Armory Show in NY marked a shift in the art world, as the US became a new center of progressive artistic activity. • Realism and Impressionism both emerged in the 2nd half of the 19th century. Both movements focused on everyday life as a subject matter, although Impressionism became increasingly concerned with ideas of visual perception.