Art
Art techniques - which one should you choose?
There are many ways to create your own little masterpiece. You may be wondering: which art technique is the greatest for completing your vision? Today you will learn a little bit about some of them. Hopefully you will find out which one appeals to you the most.
Let us start off with my personal favourite: soft pastels. To simplify they are like chalk but made for drawing on paper. Their colours are extremely rich and blending is as easy as pie. All you need is a piece of paper, set of pastels, your fingers and a cheap hair spray to set your masterpiece in place. You have wide variety of colours to pick from. Drawings made with soft pastels are vibrant and soft-looking. However, you can also create sharp lines
which make your piece of art unique in textures. If that is what you are looking for, you should grab some soft pastels and enjoy!
Next on we will talk about oil pastels. These are even more vibrant in colour and go on paper smoothly, however they are undoubtedly much tougher to blend. You will make less of a mess using this type of pastels. To draw with oil pastels you need even less supplies - only a piece of paper and set of pastels and you are good to go! If you want your drawing to be extremely vibrant, oil pastels are certainly the way to go!
"3 Apples" by Marna Edwards Flavell
Using acrylic paints is another well-known technique, used to create something spellbinding art. They are thick, vibrant and can effortlessly mix to make completely new colours. Making a mess with them is extremely likely so be prepared for it. There is no need to worry when you get them on your furniture since you can clean them off very easily. Yet, when you get the paint on your clothes you will not be able to wash it off! You need a lot more supplies to use this technique: some brushes, a cup of water, paints, a pallet or something other than that to put your paints in, a piece of paper and a paper towel. If you want your painting to have a wide range of colours and stunning texture, acrylic paint is certainly the one for you.
"Spectacular Sunset" by Colette Baumback
Now let us talk about watercolours. They give gorgeous soft colours that are quite trouble-free to build up. Blending is extremely easy, you can even do this right on your painting. Getting the same shade of colour is quite challenging but this makes your paintings even more unique. All you need is some brushes, watercolours, piece of paper and water to make the colours come to live. Your paintings will turn out to have an astonishing variety in colours and gorgeous soft lines. If that is what you want, you found your technique!
"Irises Watercolour" by East Urban Home
Now we will take a closer look at drawing with a pencil. It is demanding to make your drawing look magnificent using only one colour in different shades. However it is not impossible. All you need is pencil (even better if you have a few in different hardnesses), piece of papier and maybe a rubber. It may be quite a challenge for complete beginners. Yet, I encourage you to at least give it a try. Worst that can happen is that you do not like you drawing and move on to another technique or decide that you want to practice to one day draw yourself a masterpiece. If you want to draw yourself a breathtaking piece of art in the shades of black and white, I highly recommend you trying this out.
Drawing by Hector Gonzales (@hg_art) on Instagram
Coloured pencils - all of us used to draw with them in a kindergarten. I suppose all of us still have some coloured pencils laying around the house, we just need to dig them out. You can with ease make a masterpiece using only them. Colours are harder to blend then other techniques but shading is as easy as pie. All you need is some coloured pencils and piece of papier. Sharpener may also be useful. If you want your drawing to have some sharp lines, wide variety of colours and gorgeous shading, give colourful pencils a try!
"Eye Maze" by AtomiccircuS on DeviantArt
This technique is less about drawing and paintings but more about gluing. Mosaic is all about using colourful pieces of porcelain to create a gorgeous masterpiece! All you need is colourful tiles, a tile nipper (you can also use a wire cutter or a glass tile nipper), glue, a piece of cardboard and a sketch of the final product. You cannot mix colours or blend them together, nonetheless you can create yourself a masterpiece. If you are looking for something different then just drawing or painting, give it a try. You won’t regret it!
Mosaic by Plum Art Mosaics 2014 (Sharon Plummer)
I gave you a little overview of different art techniques. You can get inventive and easily mix them together and create a unique piece of art. I highly recommend you to give all of them a try since that is how you will really know what you love the most and what suits your style the best.