Unit+3.+Two+dimensional+artist+techniques

UNIT 3: **Two - dimensional artist** **techniques**

Two dimensional images are images developed on a plane. This limits the choice of media and techniques to use. This unit deals with the techniques of two-dimensional representation.

**Drawing**

Drawing is the simplest method of representation. Normally it is associated with instruments like **pencil**, **charcoal**, **pen**, etc. In addition to the line, which is the defining element of the form, another characteristic is the medium. Normally it is the type of paper.

**To block in shapes** is the traditional method for starting a drawing. The **freehand** method normally tends to follow these steps:


 * 1) Choose the models and the position from where we are going to drawing.
 * 2) Select the format and orientation of the paper. At the same time we choose the proportion of the space the objects occupy in the format.
 * 3) Visually reduce the models to their simplest geometric structures.
 * 4) Draw these figures on paper with special attention to proportion and size.
 * 5) Once the geometric drawing is finished, we study the contours of the forms and transfer them onto the shapes.
 * 6) The last step is the application of color.

To choose the perfect frame it is necessary in many cases to do a test to visualize the end result. These test are called **sketches**.

Sketches are not intended to represent reality faithfully but serve to guide the artists to analyze the composition of the elements before the final work.

Another method of blocking in shapes is **grid drawing**. The steps to follow are:


 * 1) Draw the grid on the original drawing.
 * 2)  <span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">On our paper we draw another grid either larger or smaller than the original grid depending on the size we want our new drawing to be.
 * 3)  <span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">Transfer the original drawing to the new grid by copying the main lines and then adding the details.

<span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">**Painting.**

<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Painting is the art to represent abstract or figurative motifs. <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Components of paint are pigments mixed with a **binder** to give consistency and fix them on the surface. <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Painting techniques are divided in dry techniques and wet techniques. <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">**Dry painting techniques** <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Dry techniques are techniques made by solid materials like **colored pencils**, **pastels**, and **crayons**.

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<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"> **pencils** are made by color lead covered by wood. The lead is composed of a pigment with **cellulose gum** which acts like a binder. <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.02cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.68cm;">Drawing lines obtained by colored pencils are bright, soft and slightly opaque depending on the paper grain. The shades are obtained by crossing lines from the different colors.

<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">**Pastels** are bars of pigments bonded with tragacanth gum. It works by melting tones and colors with your fingers, **stumps** or **brushes**. Pastels usually have different degrees of hardness; the most used are soft pastels. It is better to work on rough paper such as watercolor paper.

<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">The works made with pastels are very vulnerable because the color is easily removed from the surface. It is necessary to fix the image with spray and frame within glass. This makes the colors lose brightness.

<span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">**Crayons** are made with fatty binders like wax. Crayons cover easily the surface and are very bright but do not allow detailed drawings. We can dissolve with turpentine and combine well with china ink.

<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">**Wet painting techniques**

<span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">Wet painting techniques are those in which the paint is diluted with water or another substance such as paint thinner or oil. It is usually necessary to prepare the surface with a **primer**. A primer is a layer of a substance that makes the surface less porous is the basis for the following layers of paint. <span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">The instruments we normally use with wet techniques are the **eisel** to keep the painting vertical, the **palette** in which the colors are placed on the exterior and blended in the center and the **spatula** to mix and extend the paint.

<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">The most important materials used with this techniques are the **oil paints**, **watercolors** and acrylic paints like **poster paint**.

<span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">**The oil paints** are a type of greasy paint in which pigments are dissolved in oils like **flaxseed oil.** <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Oil paints are dense and opaque, but when they are diluted with turpentine they have very expressive transparent effects. Since the colors take a long time to dry we can work with other fresh colors to melt previously applied colors together and make different textures. The colors do not change when they dry and can be applied to different surfaces such as fabric, glass, paper, etc. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">The mixture of colors is obtained by different methods such as:


 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Combining two colors on the palette to get a third color that is applied to the surface.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Painting with brush strokes close together with two or more colors to produce for the observer the visual sensation of a third color.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Using the technique of glazing that extends a very diluted film based color on another color to produce a new one.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">**Watercolors** are paints dissolved in water. Colors are very transparent and very fast drying. Watercolors features are:
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Colors are transparent and respect the whiteness of the paper allowing the white to show through and retouches.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Colors dry quickly requiring great skill with the brush.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Some techniques of watercolors are:


 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">To paint wet on wet. Wet the paper with water and then apply the paint, blending colors with each other. This technique must be used to fill a large area or for abstract drawings.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Dry paper. Colors are prepared on the palette and applied directly to the pencil drawing.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Covering the paper with a liquid that prevents the color from permeating the paper. When the work is complete the fluid is removed using an eraser leaving the white paper visible.

<span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">**Poster paints** <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> are acrylic paints which are diluted in water but their final appearance is thicker than watercolors because they have more pigment. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">For very diluted paint it is appropriate to apply the light colors, like watercolors, first. When working with heavy paints it is better to start with the darker tones.



<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">**Engraving**

<span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">Engraving is part of graphic arts techniques characterized by the repetition of images. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">The original engraved surface, like metal or wood, is inked and pressed onto paper using pressure, like a <span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">stamp. <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">The general process of engraving is the next step:
 * <span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">Make cuts or incisions on a plate or mold to create figurative and abstract forms.
 * <span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif;">Apply ink to the plate and remove the excess ink so that the ink is only in the groves. Then press the plate using an **etching press** to produce the stamp.

<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">**Intaglio printing**

<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">On the surface of a sheet of thin, flat metal (eg copper or zinc) the recorder artist opens incisions with a **chisel** or sharp instrument or using corrosive acids that attack and dissolve metal. After the surface of the original plate is inked, it is cleaned so that the remaining ink is only in the incisions. Then the plate is pressed on paper and both are passed through the etching press to transfer by pressure the latent image of the metal plate to form the stamp.

<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">**Embossing**

<span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">This system corresponds to the printing techniques on wood or linoleum. The main instrument for stamping wood is the **gouge** which is a small iron tool that makes grooves in an arc or "v". <span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;"> embossing is so named because parts of the sheet of wood or linoleum that have not been eliminated are raised above the recessed areas. These raised parts hold ink and are imprinted on the plate while recessed areas are left empty. <span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The woodcut and wood engraving does not require large resources and depending on the wood used will have different characteristics:


 * <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Hardwoods such as cherry, pear or apple tree produces detailed work.
 * <span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Softwoods such as pine or poplar are best to get large and uniforms areas and different textures.

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<span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">**Other two-dimensional techniques**

<span style="font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">In addition to traditional techniques, there are other techniques that have been developed thanks to technological advances.

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<span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">**Reprographics** <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Reprographics is the application of mechanical and electrographic techniques which can obtain multiple copies of one original. The most widely used instrument is a photocopier. <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Using the tools of the photocopier we can create changes such as:
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">alter the color scale.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">enlarge only a part of the image
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: ArialMT,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">change the surface producing different textures.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">make a sweeping effect by moving the original image on the screen of the photocopier.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">reproduce an image with different intensities of toner.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">**The pro****jection of images**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">This technical process can have a dual artistic use:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">It is a means of creation of images by itself that it is very used in contemporary art like ¨happening¨
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Some hyperrealistic artists use it as a way to make shapes of some pictures. They project the images over the selected surface to trace the principal lines.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">**The Digital Technology** <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Computers have affected all human activities and the artistic creation with a new aesthetic language, the multimedia communication. Thanks to social networks from the Internet, artistic work can easily be spread.