MEDIUM AND TECHNIQUE Chapter 2
MEDIUM
MEDIUM
In general sense, medium is the material, or the
substance out of which a work is made. The
choice of medium is part of the meaning of the
work. It is a signifier of meaning in the context
of the work’s total meaning.
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TWO DIMENSIONAL EXPRESSION
DOES ALL SURFACES CAN BE
USED AS A PAINTING
GROUND?
The first paintings
done by people were
colored figures of
animals of the hunt on
the walls of caves
ALLA PRIMA OR DIRECT METHOD
INDIRECT OR TRADITIONAL METHOD
-GLAZING
-SCRUMBLING
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PAPER
PAPYRUS PLANT PAPYRUS PAPER
WATERCOLOR
WET-ON-WET TECHNIQUE DRY BRUSH TECHNIQUE
FOR CHINESE WATERCOLOR AND CALLIGRAPHY
CHEESECLOTH OR KATSA
KATSA
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CHEESECLOTH OR KATSA
COMMON SUBSTITUTE FOR CANVAS, ESPECIALLY FOR LARGE
MURALS FOR PUBLIC GATHERINGS WHICH CAN BE ROLLED UP
AFTER DISPLPAY.
KATSA IS ALSO THE MATERIAL USED FOR PAINTING WITH DYES-
RESIST TECHNIQUES SIMILAR TO HANDMADE BATIK.
WHATS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
KATSA AND CANVASS?
WHY USE KATSA IN LARGE MURALS?
Canvas can mean different things to different people. In the
context of painting, the word ‘canvas’ means a fabric used as a
painting surface. The difference is that sometimes the canvas is
made from cotton fibers and other times from linen fibers. Each
material is worth looking at in more detail.
Cotton is a soft, fluffy fibre that grows in a boll or protective
capsule around the seeds of cotton plants. The plant is native to the
Americas, Africa and India and is most often spun into yarn or
thread to create a soft, breathable textile - the chances are you
are wearing some cotton right now.
The advantage of cotton to you as an artist is that it is affordable and it stretches very
easily. A properly prepared cotton canvas will last a long time and is the most popular
surface for oil and acrylic painting, especially for students, although it is considered too
flexible for very large paintings. It is classified according to its weight and surface texture.
Linen
Linen is strong and durable, and remains the preferred surface for many artists but it is
expensive. It is made from the fibres of the flax plant and top quality flax is harvested
mainly in Western Europe. If you want your painting to last then a linen canvas is a
sound investment. The threads that make up linen, known as the warp and weft threads,
weigh the same, which means they are less prone to expansion or contraction due to
moisture.
Linen retains its natural oils, which helps to preserve the fibre’s flexibility and stops the
canvas from going brittle. It is also regarded as having a more ‘natural’ weaved finish
than cotton – a variety of textures and weights are available in both rough and smooth
finishes.
Because of its strength linen holds up to a heavy painting hand and does not become
slack as easily as cotton canvas.
PAINTINGS
MURAL
Fresco is a kind of mural painting on a wall, which, to ensure durability, must
first be prepared by a coat of damp plaster.
GLASS AND STAINED GLASS
The latter consists of designs made from pieces
colored glass forming figures held together by strips
of lead which themselves constitute independent
designs. Stained glass is primarily associated with the
Gothic cathedrals of the 12th-13th centuries with their
rose windows ans walld of stained glass narrating
religious episodes.
Sainte-Chapelle, mid-13th Century
ROSE WINDOWS
MOSAIC
Another two-dimensional art, goes back to early Rome
and to the Byzantine and Early Christian when it adorned
the churches and the catacombs. Its technique is simple but
painstaking: small units called tesserae – originally there
were chips from slabs of colored stone, marble, or glass –
are embedded on a wall or a floor prepared with wet
cement such a way that their tiny facets reflect the light.
Byzantine Empress Theodora and her retinue
TAPESTRY
COLLAGES
Collage became an important landmark in the history of
Cubism, and, therefore, the entire modern art of the 20th
century. It is still unknown who invented it: Braque or Picasso.
Both artists left a lot of works made between 1907 and
1914 which were not dated or signed. It is even more
difficult to establish the authorship based on stylistic
peculiarities when something new is born.
COLLAGES
Bottle of Vieux Marc,
Glass, Guitar, and
Newspaper - collager
by Picasso
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A collage by Braque
OTHER UNCONVENTIONAL MEDIUMS FOR
TWO-DIMENSIONAL EXPRESSION
SPILLED COFFEE
PHOTO: GIULIA BERNARDELLI
POST-IT NOTES
PHOTO: IH8GATES
Dice. Frederic McSwain created
this portrait as a tribute to his
f r i e n d , To b i a s Wo n g , a
Canadian artist and designer
who died from suicide (while
sleepwalking). The portrait was
made using 13,138 dice – one
for each day of Tobias’ short 35
years. (Image Source: Miller
Taylor)
Cassette Tapes. Erika Iris
Simmons uses old cassette
tape to create popular
celebrity portraits. She likes
to preserve old technologies
such as cassette tapes that
are no longer being used.
With the tapes, she recreates
portraits of celebrities such as
John Lennon or Marilyn
Monroe. (Image Source: iri5)
Sand. Kseniya Simonova uses
sand to create animated stories.
From a pile of sand, Kseniya can
push, rub and pinch sand into
accents that translates into
beautiful depiction of stories. A
quick rub and she can start from
a clean slate and start telling
stories with sand again. (Image
Source: Simonova TV)
Paper Strips. Yulia Brodskaya uses the
quilling process (coiling, shaping and
manipulating) of paper strips to create
this breathtaking look of an old man
and his guitar. (Image Source: Yulia
Brodskaya)
GRAPHIC ARTS
The term is used to refer to “those arts which depend for
their effect on drawing and not on color; in other words the
arts of drawing and engraving in all its forms.” In a more
limited sense, graphic arts refer to printmaking and
illustration.
1. RELIEF
Rodolfo Paras
Perez, The Kiss
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2. INTAGLIO
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3. SURFACE OR PLANOGRAPHIC METHOD
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4. SERIGRAPHY OR SILKSCREEN
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THREE-DIMENSIONAL EXPRESSION
SCULPTURE
It is done by the conventional methods of carving
modelling, and casting, as well as other forms which
extended to range of sculpture in terms of new
artistic concepts, media, and techniques.
The first sculptures were made of stone. These were engraved male
and female figures on large pieces of stone called menhirs which
had the religious function of serving as receptacles for
disembodied souls.
Other Stone Age were the fertility statuettes, stone figures called
“venuses” such as VENUS OF Willendorf and the Venus of Laussel.
In the Philippines, artifacts called likha, blocklike human figures with
lightly incised features, were excavated in Calatagan, Batangas
Egyptians
Made their statues of granite and limestone
Greeks
Used marble for their statuary, and their achievements in the art led
marble to be regarded as the “noble medium”
Marble
Continue to be prime sculptural medium in the Renaissance with the
sculpture s of Michaelangelo, in the Baroque Period with the works of
Gianlorenzo Bernini, and in later works of classical inspiration.
Chinese have long tradition of jade carving.
CLAY
All pottery can be divided into three categories:
1. Earthenware
2. Stoneware
3. Porcelein
STONEWARE
Goes through much higher firing which vitrifies the clay so
that it becomes close-grained and non-porous.
EARTHENWARE
The most common of these – the ordinary palayok is an
example it can ne sun-dried or kiln-baked
PORCELAIN
In, a Chinese invention, the body of the vessel is hard,
white and translucent. An important technique in pottery is
glazing, whic h imparts a smooth finish , color, and
decorative effects.
Figurative sculpture made of baked clay is called
terracotta, which is realized by modelling or shaping the
soft clay material.
METAL
Used as sculptural medium from ancient times to the present. Many
greek sculptures were in bronze, of whic h Zeus Hur ling a
Thunderbolt is a fine example.
Polycleitos excuted the Doryphoros or Lance-bearer, a model of
classical Hellenic sculpture, in bronze. The traditional method for
bronze sculpture is sand casting which involves making a mould of
special sand from an original model of plaster of paris, inserting a
core and pouring in the molten bronze.
DORYPHOROS OR LANCE
ZEUS HURLING A THUNDERBOLT BEARER
SAND CASTING
CIRE PERDUE OR LOST WAX
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CONTEMPORARY SCULPTORS HAVE MADE USE OF DIFFERENT
KINDS OF METAL IN DIFFERENT WAYS. UNLIKE OTHER MEDIA,
METALS HAVE THE PROPERTIES OF DUCTILITY, THAT IS, THEY CAN
BE DRAWN OUT INTO WIRES; AND MALLEABILITY, THAT THEY
CAN SHAPED BY HAMMERING OR MELTED, CAST, MOULDED, OR
PRESSED INTO PREDETERMINED SHAPES. IN CONTEMPORARY
SCULPTURES, METALS SUCH AS BRONZE, STEEL, IRON, AND
ALUMINUM HAVE BEEN CUT, WELDED, CAST, MOULDED,
P O L I S H E D O R PAT I N AT E D, P R O D U C I N G D U R A B L E A N D
PERMANENT RESULTS.
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI
DID WIRY, NERVOUS, ATTENUATED
FIGURES IN BRONZE INTERACTING
ACROSS OPEN SPACE.
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI
USED THE SAME MATERIAL TO
CONVEY GRACE AND HARMONY.
EDUARDO CASTRILLO
USES METAL SHEETS WITH VERVE
AND DYNAMISM WHETHER IN THE
ABSTRACT OR FIGURATIVE MODE.
SOLOMON SAPRID
CREATES OUT OF WELDED PIECES
CRAGGY, EXPENSIVE FIGURES IN
ACTION.
VIRGINIA TY-NAVARRO
BUILDS HER FIGURES WITH A
“POINTILIST TECHNIQUE”.
WOOD
PHILIPPINE NARRA AND MOLAVE, ARE AMONG THE BEST IN THE WORLD.
WOOD EVOKE THE FOREST FROM WHICH THEY CAME, AS WELL AS THE
ATMOSPHERE OF THE HUMAN DWELLING.
NAPOLEON ABUEVA, WHILE HE HAS ALSO SCULPTED IN STONE AND METAL, IS
STILL FOREMOST SCULPTOR IN WOOD.
A PHOTO OF NAPOLEON ABUEVA'S "SIYAM NA DIWATA NG SINING"
STATUE.
The Bataan Memorial Cross
designed by Napoleon Abueva
and Lorenzo del Castillo
Transfiguration, 1979 at Eternal Gardens Memorial Park
The Crucifix with Double Corpora depicting
both a suffering and a risen Christ
J. ELIZALDE NAVARRO
HAS DONE EXPRESSIONISTIC MASKS AND
FIGURES WITH A STRONG, “PRIMITIVE” QUALITY.
A NUMBER OF REGIONS IN THE COUNTRY
HAVE WOODCARVING TRADITIONS THAT
GO BACK TO PRE-COLONIAL TIMES. THE
IFUGAOS AND KALINGAS OF THE
CORDILLERAS CARVE THE BULOL, MALE AND
FEMALE GUARDIANS OF THE GRANARY AND
THE HOUSEHOLD
Ukkil is a technique used in Mindanao,
specifically in the Sulu Peninsula. It is a
d ecora t ive d esig n t h a t i s u se d i n
carving, basketry, pottery, and weaving
with patterns similar to the western style
of Arabesque and Art Nouveau.
BETIS FURNITURE
FEATURES FLORAL AND CURLING VINE DESIGNS IN
OPEN WORKWITH MINIATURE FINELY TURNED
BALUSTERS.
PAETE LAGUNA
TAKAS
BRIGHTLY COLORED PAPER MACHE ANIMALS
LUCBAN PAHIYAS
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
GLASS
CHROMIUM
ALUMINUM
PLASTICS
GLASS
GLASS BLOWING
CHROMIUM
ALUMINUM
PLASTICS
NAUM GABO
LINEAR CONSTRUCTION NO. 1 LINEAR CONSTRUCTION NO. 2
NAUM GABO
USED PLEXI-GLASS CELLULOID,
NYLON, AND LUCITE WITH STAINLESS
THREAD-LIKE STEEL SPRINGS TO
CREATE SCULPTURES IN WHICH SPACE
SEEMS TO FLOW THROUGH THE
TRANSPARENT MATERILAS. LUMINAL
SCULPTURE WHICH MAKES USE OF
LIGHT BULBS IS A MARRIAGE OF ART
AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY.
CONSTRUCTION IN SPACE
(CRYSTAL)
KINETIC ART
THREE-DIMENSIONAL COLLAGES
ORIGAMI
ASSEMBLAGE
AMERICAN ARTIST ROBERT
RAUSCHENBERG
FOUND OBJECTS
SCALE
SCALE CAN BE VERY LARGE OR VERY SMALL. AT ON END IS THE BRONZE COLOSSUS OF
RHODES, ONE OF THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD, WHICH STOOD OVER
ONE HUNDRED FEET HIGN IN THE GREEK HARBOR.
MADONNA AND CHILD
ARCHITECTURAL MATERIALS
AND METHODS
ARCHITECTURAL MATERIALS ARE OF FIVE KINDS:
ROCK SUCH AS STONE AND CLAY
ORGANIC SUCH AS WOOD
METAL SUCH AS STEEL
SYNTHETIC SUCH AS GLASS AND PLASTIC
HYBRID SUCH AS CONCRETE
THREE QUALITIES OF MATERIAL IS CONSIDERED IN THE
SELECTION OF MATERIAL FOR THE BUILDING: ”STRUCTURE,
WHICH DETERMINES THE PARTICULAR WAY IT REACTS UNDER
STRESS, AND WILL DETERMINE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND FORM
DIRECTLY; TEXTURE, WHICH DIRECTS THE CHOICE OF TOOLS TO
USE, THAT IS IN ACCORD WITH ITS INTERNAL STRUCTURE;
ASPECT, WHICH TAGS ITS PARTICULAR COLOR AND OUTSIDE
SKIN AFTER TOOLING.”
-PAUL JACQUES GRILLO
FIVE METHODS OR SYSTEMS OF
ARCHITECTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS CAN BE
DISTINGUISHED:
LASHED CONSTRUCTION
POST-AND-LINTEL CONSTRUCTION
ARCH AND VAULT CONSTRUCTION
SKELETON CONSTRUCTION
CANTILEVER CONSTRUCTION
LASHED CONSTRUCTION
THIS KIND OF CONSTRUCTION PREVALENT IN THE TROPICAL IS ASSEMBLED
BY MANUAL SKILL ALONE, WITHOUT THE AID OF FABRICATED TOOLS FOR
SAWING, MORTISING, AND SO ON.
A LASHING IS AN ARRANGEMENT OF ROPE WIRE OR WEBBING WITH
LINKING DEVICE USED TO SECURE AND FASTEN TWO OR MORE ITEMS
TOGETHER IN A SOMEWHAT RIGID MANNER.
POST-LINTEL-CONSTRUCTION
IN ARCHITECTURE, POST AND LINTEL (ALSO CALLED PROP AND LINTEL OR A TRABEATED
SYSTEM) IS A BUILDING SYSTEM WHERE STRONG HORIZONTAL ELEMENTS ARE HELD UP
BY STRONG VERTICAL ELEMENTS WITH LARGE SPACES BETWEEN THEM. THIS IS USUALLY
USED TO HOLD UP A ROOF, CREATING A LARGELY OPEN SPACE BENEATH, FOR
WHATEVER USE THE BUILDING IS DESIGNED FOR. THE HORIZONTAL ELEMENTS ARE
CALLED BY A VARIETY OF NAMES INCLUDING LINTEL, HEADER, ARCHITRAVE OR BEAM,
AND THE SUPPORTING VERTICAL ELEMENTS MAY BE CALLED COLUMNS, PILLARS, OR
POSTS. THE USE OF WIDER ELEMENTS AT THE TOP OF THE POST, CALLED CAPITALS, TO
HELP SPREAD THE LOAD, IS COMMON TO MANY TRADITIONS.
ARCH AND VAULT CONSTRUCTION
ARCH AND VAULT, A FUNDAMENTAL CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM IN
ARCHITECTURE USED TO SPAN THE SPACE BETWEEN WALLS, PIERS, OR OTHER
SUPPORTS AND TO CREATE A ROOF OR A CEILING. UNTIL THE 19TH CENTURY
THE ARCH AND VAULT WERE THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE TO THE FAR MORE
LIMITED AND SIMPLER POST-AND-LINTEL SYSTEM SUPPORTING A FLAT OR
PEAKED BEAMED ROOF.
SKELETON CONSTRUCTION
A METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING HIGH BUILDINGS IN WHICH THE
CHIEF HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL MEMBERS ARE OF ROLLED
STEEL AND THE WALLS ARE FOR THE MOST PART SUPPORTED AT
THE FLOOR LEVELS BY THE STEEL FRAME ITSELF
CANTILEVER CONSTRUCTION
A CANTILEVER IS A BEAM SUPPORTED ONLY AT ONE
END, WITH LOAD CARRIED OVER THE OVERHANGING.
THIS IS IN CONTRAST TO A SIMPLY-SUPPORTED BEAM,
WHICH IS SUPPORTED AT BOTH ENDS.
CANTILEVER CONSTRUCTION CAN BE USED IN BRIDGE BUILDING FOR CROSSING LARGE SPANS. A
SIMPLE CANTILEVER SPAN IS CONSTRUCTED FROM TWO CANTILEVER ARMS EXTENDING FROM
OPPOSITE SIDES, AND MEETING IN THE MIDDLE. A COMMON VARIATION OF THIS IS THE
SUSPENDED SPAN WHERE THE CANTILEVER ARMS SUPPORT A CENTRAL TRUSS BRIDGE RESTING
ON THE ENDS OF THE CANTILEVER ARMS. A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF THE CANTILEVER BRIDGE IS THE
FORTH RAILWAY BRIDGE IN SCOTLAND WHICH HAS THREE CANTILEVERS WITH TWO
CONNECTING SUSPENDED SPANS.
