Module 6: Media for Two-Dimensional Art

Artists find ways to express themselves with almost anything available. It is a stamp of
their creativity to make extraordinary images and objects from various but fairly ordinary
materials. From charcoal, paper and thread to paint, ink and found objects like leaves,
artists continue to search for ways to construct and deliver their message.

This module explores traditional and non-traditional mediums associated with two-
dimensional artworks including:
· Drawing
· Painting
· Printmaking
· Collage
Two-dimensional media are grouped into general categories. Let’s look at each group to
understand their particular qualities and how artists use them.

1. Drawing

Drawing is the simplest and most efficient way to communicate visual ideas, and for
centuries charcoal, chalk, graphite and paper have been adequate enough tools to
launch some of the most profound images in art. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin and
Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist wraps all four figures together in what
is essentially an extended family portrait. Da Vinci draws the figures in a spectacularly
realistic style, one that emphasizes individual identities and surrounds the figures in a
grand, unfinished landscape. He animates the scene with the Christ child pulling himself
forward, trying to release himself from Mary’s grasp to get closer to a young John the
Baptist on the right, who himself is turning toward the Christ child with a look of curious
interest in his younger cousin.

The traditional role of drawing was to make sketches for larger compositions to be
manifest as paintings, sculpture or even architecture. Because of its relative immediacy,
this function for drawing continues today. A preliminary sketch by the contemporary
architect Frank Gehry captures the complex organic forms of the buildings he designs.

Types of Drawing Media

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 Dry Media includes charcoal, graphite, chalks and pastels. Each of these mediums
gives the artist a wide range of mark making capabilities and effects, from thin lines to
large areas of color and tone. The artist can manipulate a drawing to achieve desired
effects in many ways, including exerting different pressures on the medium against the
drawing’s surface, or by erasure, blotting or rubbing.

This process of drawing can instantly transfer the sense of character to an image. From
energetic to subtle, these qualities are apparent in the simplest works: the immediate
and unalloyed spirit of the artist’s idea. You can see this in the self-portraits of two
German artists; Kathe Kollwitz and
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Wounded during the first world war, his Self-Portrait Under the
Influence of Morphine from about 1916 presents us with a nightmarish vision of himself
wrapped in the fog of opiate drugs. His hollow eyes and the graphic dysfunction of his
marks attest to the power of his drawing.

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 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Self Portrait Under the Influence of Morphine, around 1916.
Ink on paper.
This image is in the public domain.

Graphite media includes pencils, powder or compressed sticks. Each one creates a
range of values depending on the hardness or softness inherent in the material. Hard
graphite tones range from light to dark gray, while softer graphite allows a range from
light gray to nearly black. French sculptor Gaston Lachaise’s Standing Nude with
Drapery is a pencil drawing that fixes the energy and sense of movement of the figure to
the paper in just a few strokes. And Steven Talasnik’s contemporary large-
scale drawings in graphite, with their swirling, organic forms and architectural structures
are testament to the power of pencil (and eraser) on paper.
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 Gaston Lachiase, Standing Nude with Drapery, 1891.
Graphite and ink on paper. Honolulu Academy of Arts.
This image is in the public domain.

Charcoal, perhaps the oldest form of drawing media, is made by simply charring
wooden sticks or small branches, called vine charcoal, but is also available in a
mechanically compressed form. Vine charcoal comes in three densities: soft, medium
and hard, each one handling a little different than the other. Soft charcoals give a more
velvety feel to a drawing. The artist doesn’t have to apply as much pressure to the stick
in order to get a solid mark. Hard vine charcoal offers more control but generally doesn’t
give the darkest tones. Compressed charcoals give deeper blacks than vine charcoal,
but are more difficult to manipulate once they are applied to paper.

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 Left: vine charcoal sticks. Right: compressed charcoal squares.
This image is in the public domain.

Charcoal drawings can range in value from light grays to rich, velvety blacks. A
charcoal drawing by American artist Georgia O’Keeffe is a good example.

Pastels are essentially colored chalks usually compressed into stick form for better
handling. They are characterized by soft, subtle changes in tone or color. Pastel
pigments allow for a resonant quality that is more difficult to obtain with graphite or
charcoal. Picasso’s Portrait of the Artist's Mother from 1896 emphasizes these qualities.

Pastels.
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 More recent developments in dry media are oil pastels, pigment mixed with an organic
oil binder that deliver a heavier mark and lend themselves to more graphic and vibrant
results. The drawings of Beverly Buchanan reflect this. Her work celebrates rural life of
the south centered in the forms of old houses and shacks. The buildings stir memories
and provide a sense of place, and are usually surrounded by people, flowers and bright
landscapes. She also creates sculptures of the shacks, giving them an identity beyond
their physical presence.

Wet media
Ink: Wet drawing media traditionally refers to ink but really includes any substance that
can be put into solution and applied to a drawing’s surface. Because wet media is
manipulated much like paint – through thinning and the use of a brush – it blurs the line
between drawing and painting. Ink can be applied with a stick for linear effects and by
brush to cover large areas with tone. It can also be diluted with water to create values of
gray. The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt shows an expressive use of brown
ink in both the line qualities and the larger brushed areas that create the illusion of light
and shade.

Felt tip pens are considered a form of wet media. The ink is saturated into felt strips
inside the pen then released onto the paper or other support through the tip. The ink
quickly dries, leaving a permanent mark. The colored marker drawings of Donnabelle
Casis have a flowing, organic character to them. The abstract quality of the subject
matter infers body parts and viscera.

Other liquids can be added to drawing media to enhance effects – or create new ones.
Artist Jim Dine has splashed soda onto charcoal drawings to make the surface bubble
with effervescence. The result is a visual texture unlike anything he could create with
charcoal alone, although his work is known for its strong manipulation. Dine’s drawings
often use both dry and liquid media. His subject matter includes animals, plants, figures
and tools, many times crowded together in dense, darkly romantic images.

Traditional Chinese painting uses water-based inks and pigments. In fact, it is one of the
oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painted on supports of paper or silk, the
subject matter includes landscapes, animals, figures and calligraphy, an art form that
uses letters and script in fluid, lyrical gestures.
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 Two examples of traditional Chinese painting are seen below. The first, a wall scroll
painted by Ma Lin in 1246, demonstrates how adept the artist is in using ink in an
expressive form to denote figures, robes and landscape elements, especially the strong,
gnarled forms of the pine trees. There is sensitivity and boldness in the work. The
second example is the opening detail of a copy of "Preface to the Poems Composed at
the Orchid Pavilion" made before the 13th century. Using ink and brush, the artist makes
language into art through the sure, gestural strokes and marks of the characters.

Ma Lin, Wall Scroll, ink on silk. 1246

This image is in the public domain.

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 Opening detail of a copy of Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion.
Before the 13th century.
Hand scroll, ink on paper. The Palace Museum, Beijing.
This image is in the public domain.

Drawing is a foundation for other two and three-dimensional works of art, even being
incorporated with digital media that expands the idea of its formal expression. The art
of Matthew Ritchie starts with small abstract drawings. He digitally scans and projects
them to large scales, taking up entire walls. Ritchie also uses the scans to produce
large, thin three-dimensional templates to create sculptures out of the original drawings.

2. Painting
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 Painting is the application of pigments to a support surface that establishes an image,
design or decoration. In art the term ‘painting’ describes both the act and the result.
Most painting is created with pigment in liquid form and applied with a brush. Exceptions
to this are found in Navajo sand painting and Tibetan mandala painting, where
powdered pigments are used. Painting as a medium has survived for thousands of
years and is, along with drawing and sculpture, one of the oldest creative mediums. It’s
used in some form by cultures around the world.
Three of the most recognizable images in Western art history are paintings: Leonardo
da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Edvard Munch’s The Scream and Vincent van Gogh’sThe Starry
Night. These three art works are examples of how painting can go beyond a simple
mimetic function, that is, to only imitate what is seen. The power in great painting is that
it transcends perceptions to reflect emotional, psychological, even spiritual levels of the
human condition.
Painting mediums are extremely versatile because they can be applied to many
different surfaces (called supports) including paper, wood, canvas, plaster, clay,
lacquer and concrete. Because paint is usually applied in a liquid or semi-liquid state it
has the ability to soak into porous support material, which can, over time, weaken and
damage the it. To prevent this a support is usually first covered with aground, a
mixture of binder and chalk that, when dry, creates a non-porous layer between the
support and the painted surface. A typical ground is gesso.
There are six major painting mediums, each with specific individual characteristics:
· Encaustic
· Tempera
· Fresco
· Oil
· Acrylic
· Watercolor
All of them use three basic ingredients:
· Pigment
· Binder
· Solvent
Pigments are granular solids incorporated into the paint to contribute color. Thebinder,
commonly referred to as the vehicle, is the actual film-forming component of paint. The
binder holds the pigment in solution until it’s ready to be dispersed onto the surface.
The solvent controls the flow and application of the paint. It’s mixed into the paint,
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 usually with a brush, to dilute it to the proper viscosity, or thickness, before it’s applied
to the surface. Once the solvent has evaporated from the surface the remaining paint is
fixed there. Solvents range from water to oil-based products like linseed oil and mineral
spirits.
Let’s look at each of the six main painting mediums:
1. Encaustic paint mixes dry pigment with a heated beeswax binder. The mixture is
then brushed or spread across a support surface. Reheating allows for longer
manipulation of the paint. Encaustic dates back to the first century C.E. and was used
extensively in funerary mummy portraits from Fayum in Egypt. The characteristics of
encaustic painting include strong, resonant colors and extremely durable paintings.
Because of the beeswax binder, when encaustic cools it forms a tough skin on the
surface of the painting.

The twentieth-century American artist, Jasper Johns used encaustic techniques in his
compositions. In his work, Flag (1954-1955), Jasper used a combination of encaustic,
oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood.

Jasper Johns Flag

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 Modern electric and gas tools allow for extended periods of heating and paint
manipulation. Goldberg uses a blowtorch.
2. Tempera paint combines pigment with an egg yolk binder, then thinned and released
with water. Like encaustic, tempera has been used for thousands of years. It dries
quickly to a durable matte finish. Tempera paintings are traditionally applied in
successive thin layers, called glazes, painstakingly built up using networks of cross
hatched lines. Because of this technique tempera paintings are known for their detail.

Duccio, The Crevole Madonna, c. 1280. Tempera on board.

Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy
This image is in the public domain.

In early Christianity, tempera was used extensively to paint images of religious icons.
The pre-Renaissance Italian artist Duccio (c. 1255 – 1318), one of the most influential
artists of the time, used tempera paint in the creation of The Crevole Madonna (above).
You can see the sharpness of line and shape in this well-preserved work, and the detail
he renders in the face and skin tones of the Madonna (see the detail below).

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 Contemporary painters still use tempera as a medium. American painter Andrew Wyeth
(1917-2009) used tempera to create Christina's World, a masterpiece of detail,
composition and mystery.
This image is in the public domain.

3. Fresco painting is used exclusively on plaster walls and ceilings. The medium of
fresco has been used for thousands of years, but is most associated with its use in
Christian images during the Renaissance period in Europe.

There are two forms of fresco: Buon or “wet”, and secco, meaning “dry”.

Buon fresco technique consists of painting in pigment mixed with water on a thin layer
of wet, fresh lime mortar or plaster. The pigment is applied to and absorbed by the wet
plaster; after a number of hours, the plaster dries and reacts with the air: it is this
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 chemical reaction that fixes the pigment particles in the plaster. Because of the
chemical makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required. Buon fresco is more stable
because the pigment becomes part of the wall itself.

Domenico di Michelino’s Dante and the Divine Comedy from 1465 (below) is a superb
example of buon fresco. The colors and details are preserved in the dried plaster wall.
Michelino shows the Italian author and poet Dante Aleghieri standing with a copy of the
Divine Comedy open in his left hand, gesturing to the illustration of the story depicted
around him. The artist shows us four different realms associated with the narrative: the
mortal realm on the right depicting Florence, Italy; the heavenly realm indicated by the
stepped mountain at the left center – you can see an angel greeting the saved souls as
they enter from the base of the mountain; the realm of the damned to the left – with
Satan surrounded by flames greeting them at the bottom of the painting; and the realm
of the cosmos arching over the entire scene.

Domenico di Michelino, Dante’s Divine Comedy, 1465, buon fresco, the Duomo,
Florence, Italy
This image is in the public domain.

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 Secco fresco refers to painting an image on the surface of a dry plaster wall. This
medium requires a binder since the pigment is not mixed into the wet plaster. Egg
tempera is the most common binder used for this purpose. It was common to use secco
fresco over buon fresco murals in order to repair damage or make changes to the
original.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper (below) was done using secco fresco.

Leonardo Da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1495 – 98, dry fresco on plaster. Church of Santa
Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
This image is in the public domain,

4. Oil paint is the most versatile of all the painting mediums. It uses pigment mixed with
a binder of linseed oil. Linseed oil can also be used as the vehicle, along with mineral
spirits or turpentine. Oil painting was thought to have developed in Europe during the
15th century, but recent research on murals found in Afghanistan caves show oil based
paints were used there as early as the 7thcentury.

Some of the qualities of oil paint include a wide range of pigment choices, its ability to
be thinned down and applied in almost transparent glazes as well as used straight from
the tube (without the use of a vehicle), built up in thick layers calledimpasto (you can
see this in many works by Vincent van Gogh). One drawback to the use of impasto is
that over time the body of the paint can split, leaving networks of cracks along the
thickest parts of the painting. Because oil paint dries slower than other mediums, it can

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 be blended on the support surface with meticulous detail. This extended working time
also allows for adjustments and changes to be made without having to scrape off
sections of dried paint.

In Jan Brueghel the Elder’s still life oil painting you can see many of the qualities
mentioned above. The richness of the paint itself is evident in both the resonant lights
and inky dark colors of the work. The working of the paint allows for many different
effects to be created, from the softness of the flower petals to the reflection on the vase
and the many visual textures in between.

Richard Diebenkorn’s Cityscape #1 from 1963 shows how the artist uses oil paint in a
more fluid, expressive manner. He thins down the medium to obtain a quality and
gesture that reflects the sunny, breezy atmosphere of a California morning. Diebenkorn
used layers of oil paint, one over the other, to let the under painting show through and a
flat, more geometric space that blurs the line between realism and abstraction.

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 Jan Brueghel the Elder, Flowers in a Vase, 1599. Oil on wood.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, Germany.
This image is in the public domain.

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 Richard Diebenkom, Cityscape #1
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Georgia O’Keeffe’s oil paintings show a range of handling between soft and austere to
very detailed and evocative. You rarely see her brushstrokes, but she has a summary
command of the medium of oil paint.

The abstract expressionist painters pushed the limits of what oil paint could do. Their
focus was in the act of painting as much as it was about the subject matter. Indeed, for
many of them there was no distinction between the two. The work of Willem de Kooning
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 leaves a record of oil paint being brushed, dripped, scraped and wiped away all in a
frenzy of creative activity. This idea stays contemporary in the paintings of Celia Brown.

5. Acrylic paint was developed in the 1950’s and became an alternative to oils. Pigment
is suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion binder and uses water as the vehicle. The
acrylic polymer has characteristics like rubber or plastic. Acrylic paints offer the body,
color resonance and durability of oils without the expense, mess and toxicity issues of
using heavy solvents to mix them. One major difference is the relatively fast drying time
of acrylics. They are water soluble, but once dry become impervious to water or other
solvents. Moreover, acrylic paints adhere to many different surfaces and are extremely
durable. Acrylic impastos will not crack or yellow over time.

The American artist Robert Colescott (1925-2009) used acrylics on large-scale

paintings. He uses thin layers of under painting, scumbling, high contrast colors and
luscious surfaces to bring out the full range of effects that acrylics offer.

6. Watercolor is the most sensitive of the painting mediums. It reacts to the lightest
touch of the artist and can become an over worked mess in a moment. There are two
kinds of watercolor media: transparent and opaque. Transparent watercolor operates
in a reverse relationship to the other painting mediums. It is traditionally applied to a
paper support, and relies on the whiteness of the paper to reflect light back through the
applied color (see below), whereas opaque paints (including opaque watercolors) reflect
light off the skin of the paint itself. Watercolor consists of pigment and a binder of gum
arabic, a water-soluble compound made from the sap of the acacia tree. It dissolves
easily in water.

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 The image above has been reposted by the kind permission of Chris Gildow. Please
note that this material is under copyright and cannot be reproduced in any capacity
without explicit permission from the copyright holder.

Watercolor paintings hold a sense of immediacy. The medium is extremely portable and
excellent for small format paintings. The paper used for watercolor is generally of two
types: hot pressed, which gives a smoother texture, and cold pressed, which results in a
rougher texture. Transparent watercolor techniques include the use ofwash; an area of
color applied with a brush and diluted with water to let it flow across the paper. Wet-in-
wet painting allows colors to flow and drift into each other, creating soft transitions
between them. Dry brush painting uses little water and lets the brush run across the
top ridges of the paper, resulting in a broken line of color and lots of visual texture.

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 The image above has been reposted by the kind permission of Chris Gildow. Please
note that this material is under copyright and cannot be reproduced in any capacity
without explicit permission from the copyright holder.

Examples of watercolor painting techniques: on the left, a wash. On the right, dry brush
effects.

John Marin’s Brooklyn Bridge (1912) shows extensive use of wash. He renders the
massive bridge almost invisible except for the support towers at both sides of the
painting. Even the Manhattan skyline becomes enveloped in the misty, abstract shapes
created by washes of color.

“Boy in a Red Vest” by French painter Paul Cezanne builds form through nuanced
colors and tones. The way the watercolor is laid onto the paper reflects a sensitivity and
deliberation common in Cezanne’s paintings.

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 Paul Cezanne, Boy in a Red Vest, c. 1890. Watercolor on paper.
This image is in the public domain.

The watercolors of Andrew Wyeth indicate the landscape with earth tones and localized
color, often with dramatic areas of white paperleft untouched. Brandywine Valley is a
good example.

Opaque watercolor, also called gouache, differs from transparent watercolor in that the
particles are larger, the ratio of pigment to water is much higher, and an additional, inert,
white pigment such as chalk is also present. Because of this, gouache paint gives
stronger color than transparent watercolor, although it tends to dry to a slightly lighter
tone than when it is applied. Gouache paint doesn’t hold up well as impasto, tending to
crack and fall away from the surface. It holds up well in thinner applications and often is
used to cover large areas with color. Like transparent watercolor, dried gouache paint
will become soluble again in water.

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 Jacob Lawrence’s paintings use gouache to set the design of the composition. Large
areas of color – including the complements blue and orange, dominate the figurative
shapes in the foreground, while olive greens and neutral tones animate the background
with smaller shapes depicting tools, benches and tables. The characteristics of gouache
make it difficult to be used in areas of detail.

Gouache is a medium in traditional painting from other cultures too. Zal Consults the
Magi, part of an illuminated manuscript form 16th century Iran, uses bright colors of
gouache along with ink, silver and gold to construct a vibrant composition full of intricate
patterns and contrasts. Ink is used to create lyrical calligraphic passages at the top and
bottom of the work.

Other painting mediums used by artists include the following:

Enamel paints form hard skins typically with a high-gloss finish. They use heavy
solvents and are extremely durable.

Powder coat paints differ from conventional paints in that they do not require a solvent
to keep the pigment and binder parts in suspension. They are applied to a surface as a
powder then cured with heat to form a tough skin that is stronger than most other paints.
Powder coats are applied mostly to metal surfaces.

Epoxy paints are polymers, created mixing pigment with two different chemicals: a resin
and a hardener. The chemical reaction between the two creates heat that bonds them
together. Epoxy paints, like powder coats and enamel, are extremely durable in both
indoor and outdoor conditions.

These industrial grade paints are used in sign painting, marine environments and
aircraft painting.

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 3. Printmaking

Printmaking uses a transfer process to make multiples from an original image or

template. The multiple images are printed in an edition, with each print signed and
numbered by the artist. All printmaking mediums result in images reversed from the
original. Print results depend on how the template (or matrix) is prepared. There are
three basic techniques of printmaking: Relief, Intaglio and Planar. You can get an idea
of how they differ from the cross-section images below, and view how each technique
works from this site at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

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 The image above has been reposted by the kind permission of Chris Gildow. Please
note that this material is under copyright and cannot be reproduced in any capacity
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 The black areas indicate the inked surface.

· Relief Printing

A relief print, such as a woodcut or linoleum cut, is created when the areas of the
matrix (plate or block) that are to show the printed image are on the originalsurface; the
parts of the matrix that are to be ink free having been cut away, or otherwise
removed. The printed surface is in relief from the cut away sections of the plate. Once
the area around the image is cut away, the surface of the plate is rolled up with ink.
Paper is laid over the matrix, and both are run through a press, transferring the ink from
the surface of the matrix to the paper. The nature of the relief process doesn’t allow for
lots of detail, but does result in graphic images with strong contrasts. Carl Eugene
Keel’s “Bar” shows the effects of a woodcut printed in black ink.

Carl Eugene Keel, Bar, 2006. Woodcut print on paper.

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 Block printing developed in China hundreds of years ago and was common throughout
East Asia. The Japanese woodblock print below shows dynamic effects of implied
motion and the contrasts created using only one color and black. Ukiyo-eor “floating
world” prints became popular in the 19th century, even influencing European artists
during the Industrial Revolution.

Relief printmakers can use a separate block or matrix for each color printed or,
inreduction prints a single block is used, cutting away areas of color as the print
develops. This method can result in a print with many colors.

Christopher Gildow, Boathouse, 2007, from the Stillaguamish Series. Reduction

woodcut print.
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· Intaglio Printing

Intaglio prints such as etchings, are made by incising channels into a copper or metal
plate with a sharp instrument called a burin to create the image, inking the entire plate,
then wiping the ink from the surface of the plate, leaving ink only in the incised

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 channels below the surface. Paper is laid over the plate and put through a press under
high pressure, forcing the ink to be transferred to the paper.

Examples of the intaglio process include etching and dry point: In dry point, the artist
creates an image by scratching the burin directly into a metal plate (usually copper)
before inking and printing. Today artists also use plexi-glass, a hard clear plastic, as
plates. Characteristically these prints have strong line quality and exhibit a slightly
blurred edge to the line as the result of burrs created in the process of incising the plate,
similar to clumps of soil laid to the edge of a furrowed trench. A fine example of dry
point is seen in Rembrandt’s Clump of Trees with a Vista. The velvety darks are created
by the effect of the burred-edged lines.

· Etched Printing

Etching begins by first applying a protective wax-based coating to a thin metal plate.
The artist then scratches an image with a burin through the protective coating into the
surface of the metal. The plate is then submersed in a strong acid bath, etching the
exposed lines. The plate is removed from the acid and the protective coating is removed
from the plate. Now the bare plate is inked, wiped and printed. The image is created
from the ink in the etched channels. The amount of time a plate is kept in the acid bath
determines the quality of tones in the resulting print: the longer it is etched the darker
the tones will be. ‘Correccion’ by the Spanish master Francisco Goya shows the clear
linear quality etching can produce. The acid bath removes any burrs created by the
initial dry point work, leaving details and value contrasts consistent with the amount of
lines and the distance between them. Goya presents a fantastic image of people,
animals and strange winged creatures. His work often involved biting social
commentary.‘Correccion’ is a contrast between the pious and the absurd.

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 Francisco Goya, Correccion, 1799. Etching on paper.
Private collection, used by permission.
This image is in the public domain.

There are many different techniques associated with intaglio, including aquatint,
scraping and burnishing.
· Planar Printing

Planar prints like monoprints are created on the surface of the matrix without any
cutting or incising. In this technique the surface of the matrix (usually a thin metal plate
or Plexiglass) is completely covered with ink, then areas are partially removed by
wiping, scratching away or otherwise removed to form the image. Paper is laid over the
matrix, then run through a press to transfer the image to the paper. Monoprints
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 (also monotypes) are the simplest and painterly of the printing mediums. By definition
monotypes and monoprints cannot be reproduced in editions. Kathryn Trigg’s
monotypes show how close this print medium is related to painting and drawing.

Lithography is another example of planar printmaking, developed in Germany in the

late 18th century. “Litho” means “stone” and “graph” means “to draw”. The traditional
matrix for lithography is the smooth surface of a limestone block.

Lithographic stone is on the left with the negative image. Printed positive image is on
the right. Image by Chris73.
This image is licensed under a GNU Free Documentation License.

While this matrix is still used extensively, thin zinc plates have also been introduced to
the medium. They eliminate the bulk and weight of the limestone block but provide the
same surface texture and characteristics. The lithographic process is based on the fact
that grease repels water. In traditional lithography, an image is created on the surface of
the stone or plate using grease pencils or wax crayons or a grease-based liquid medium
called tusche. The finished image is covered in a thin layer of gum arabic that includes a
weak solution of nitric acid as an etching agent. The resulting chemical reaction divides
the surface into two areas: the positive areas containing the image and that will repel
water, and the negative areas surrounding the image that will be water receptive. In
printing a lithograph, the gum arabic film is removed and the stone or metal surface is
kept moist with water so when it’s rolled up with an oil based ink the ink adheres to the
positive (image) areas but not to the negative (wet) areas.

Because of the mediums used to create the imagery, lithographic images show
characteristics much like drawings or paintings. In “A Brush for the Lead” by Currier And

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 Ives (below), a full range of shading and more linear details of description combine to
illustrate a winter’s race down the town’s main road.

Currier and Ives, A Brush for the Lead; New York Flyers on the Snow, 1867. Lithograph
Library of Congress.
This image is in the public domain.

Serigraphy, also known as Screen-printing, is a third type of planar printing medium.

Screen-printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-
blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or
other printable materials that can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image
onto a substrate such as paper or fabric. A roller or squeegee is moved across the
screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open
areas. The image below shows how a stencil’s positive (image) areas are isolated from
the negative (non-image) areas.

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 TeeshirtCopyleft cadre
Terms of Use: The image above is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Share-Alike License 3.0 (HTML). It is attributed to Meul and the original version can be
found here (HTML).

In serigraphy, each color needs a separate stencil. You can watch how this process
develops in the accompanying video. Screen printing is an efficient way to print posters,
announcements and other kinds of popular culture images. Andy Warhol’s silk screens
use images and iconography from popular culture.

4. Collage

Collage is a medium that uses found objects or images such as newspaper or other
printed material, illustrations, photographs, even string or fabric, to create images. It
also refers to works of art (paintings, drawings and prints) that include pieces of collage
within them. Collage was made popular in western art history by Pablo Picasso and
the cubists. The German artist Kurt Schwitters used collage as the dominant formal
element in his works from the 1930’s. His work Opened by Customs is an excellent
example of the importance of collage to the modern art movement in Europe before
World War Two.

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 Artist Romare Bearden used collage to comment on urban life and the black experience
in America. His Patchwork Quilt presents us with a figure in profile reminiscent
of Egyptian painting. The starkness of the black figure surrounded by a collage of
patterned fabric and dark background color creates a shallow space and dynamic
composition.

The Japanese American artist Paul Horiuchi began as a painter but by mid career used
collage almost exclusively. Mesa from 1960 is an abstract rendition of the geologic
feature: an isolated hill with steeply sloping sides and a flat top (compare it to Joseph
Goldberg’s “Spring Mesa” above in the encaustic painting section). Horiuchi’s art is a
successful blending of the formal elements of cubist ideas with the oriental aesthetic of
his Japanese heritage. His most ambitious piece is theSeattle Mural, a huge glass
mosaic commissioned for the site of the1962 World’s Fair. Though not collage, this
immense work mimics the artist’s collage technique in its shapes and composition.

Paul Horiuchi, Seattle Mural, 1962. Glass mosaic.

The Seattle Center.
The image above is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (HTML). It is
attributed to Joe Mabel and the original version can be found here (HTML).

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 Conclusion

Each individual two-dimensional medium has an extensive range of uses. Taken

together their breadth is wide and the visual, textural and emotional effects they give to
works of art are extremely varied as you can see in the many examples used
throughout this module. Most of us have had some exposure to drawing and painting,
maybe even printmaking and collage. They are tools artists use to express themselves,
their thoughts and ideas. If your curiosity is stirred by the exposure you’ve had here,
sign up for a studio art course. You’ll have the opportunity to learn additional techniques
and skills in how to use them to express your own creative ideas.

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