Painting and printmaking, along with drawing, belong to humanity's longest standing artistic traditions. The process of painting has not changed over time, but the materials and techniques have. Today, artists have many more pigments available to them, as well as a wider variety of binders, vehicles, brushes, and supports. This chapter describes each of the different types of paint: watercolor, oil, acrylic, and fresco. Depending on what choices the artists make among these materials, they can achieve an almost limitless variety of effects. The term “printmaking” describes processes for creating multiples. The four basic categories of printmaking including relief, intaglio, lithography, and screenprinting, are discussed in this Module. Each of these categories has a number of associated processes. Descriptions of many of these media and examples are explored in order to reveal their unique characteristics.

Module Outcomes: