Different Types of Medium Used In Indian Art Paintings

Crafting a piece of art takes a lot of aspects into consideration; the theme, the colours, the style, the focus, and the imagination behind the design.

Apart from these factors, one elemental aspect that contributes greatly to producing a scintillating and exquisite piece of artwork is the medium.

Do you know what a medium is in the art world?

In simple words, a medium is nothing but the substance that an artist makes use of in crafting an artwork.

Any artwork or painting is sourced out of its medium only. When more than one medium is used, the term you use is media.

While exploring an art gallery you must have encountered signs as:

• Tempera on wood
• Ink on silk
• Oil on canvas

These are nothing but the media that are used for designing the masterpieces exhibited in the gallery. Like in ‘oil on canvas’ signifies that both oil and canvas media are used for that particular piece of painting.

The medium that is used in a painting has importance too.

For example, if the artist is using a wood that is recognized as something sacred, then the painting generated out of it is also considered quite special.  

Another example would be an artist using garbage as a medium to convey some form of a message through the artwork.

The multiple mediums utilized have different characteristics when applied on the desired surface. Also, the mediums whether processed from synthetic ingredients or made naturally are made from pigments (colours).  

The relevance of mediums

Artists while carving out a masterpiece ensures to utilize some specific medium or media because of the effects that are originated.

Few of the artists also use an amalgamation of varied colours to brush up a rare style of painting.

It would be absolutely wrong to differ one medium from another on any basis as each of the media holds some special characteristics.

Varied sorts of mediums

When you look to buy paintings online, you must have been concerned or particular about any medium or media that you would desire for the artwork.

Well, there are many, and in this blog, we are going to scribble down a few of those. Let’s take a look:

Acrylic

An artist used acrylic as a medium when he/she wants to bring in shades or the appearance of watercolor paintings. This medium otherwise gives a rarest of the rare appearance to the painting.

The main reason why this medium is highly utilized because of its ability to get dried promptly. Made using the suspension of pigments in the polymer emulsion, acrylics are known to get diluted easily with water.

Pastel

Another medium that is being utilized by the artists to craft paintings. Pastel is known to be formed from pigments that are utilized to generate all coloured media.

The effect that pastel offer to the paintings is more précised to the natural dry pigments than that of any other process.

Typically, pastels can be availed in either of the three forms; gel, media, and pencil pastels.

• Soft pastels witness the highest demand owing to their large concentration of pigments and low quantity of binder.
• Hard pastels have the opposite; higher concentration level of binder and fewer chunks of pigments.
• Simply a pencil that has pastel leads is termed as pencil pastels.

Fresco

If you want to buy Indian paintings online, it might seem like an easy task in terms of accessibility and convenience. But to have a real catch, you should ensure to know the details about mediums.

Fresco comes from the Italian term fresco that means fresh.

The best examples of fresco paintings can be seen on the walls of Ajanta & Ellora. These are the oldest fresco.

These are the ancient techniques to paint water-based pigments on afresh plaster on the walls.

Gouache

This is a kind of water media that comprises the pigment, binding agent, additional inert material, and water.

Artists utilize Gouache specifically with the opaque methods of painting.

Oil

It was Indian & Chinese artists that utilized oil as a medium for paintings the very first time around the 5^th century. Artists utilized the pigments that stayed together with oil that gets dried on exposure with air.

This oil when blended with powdered pigment generates a color of the paint.

By the 15^th century, the Netherlands saw artists using oil as the medium to paint some exquisite designs. Oil paintings on canvas are very much popular in western culture and in the Indian region.

Tempera

This medium is also a common one among the artists.

Before oil became the artist’s favourite choice for medium, tempera was the one that satiated the expectations.

Unlike oil paintings, tempera is known to stick the pigments together without using oil but other substance such as egg yolk.

The egg yolk apart from keeping the pigments together and getting dried promptly is also known to provide a slightly yellow to the colour of the painting.

Today also, this medium is utilized by artists to bring some special desired effects to the artworks.

Watercolour

One of the most common media you can see when you look to Indian paintings is watercolour.

This medium is known to utilize pigments that are soluble in water and are either opaque or transparent.

Artists across the globe started utilizing watercolour mediums to sketch landscape and abstract paintings. This can seem prevalent in practice even today.

The origin of this medium is known to come in Chinese art.