Media & techniques
Drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, textiles, 3D and digital media - the tools, processes and techniques, and studio health and safety.
Learn
Media & techniques, explained point by point
Everything the GCSE specification expects you to be able to do, and how to actually do it - the same lesson a signed-in student studies from.
Choose and control drawing media, from graphite grades to charcoal
Pencils run from hard H grades, which give pale precise lines, to soft B grades, which give rich darks - an HB sits in the middle, and a 6B can go almost black. Charcoal is softer and bolder still, great for large expressive studies. Match the medium to the job: fine detail wants a sharp 2H–2B; dramatic tone wants a soft pencil or charcoal.
Build tone with hatching, cross-hatching, stippling and blending
Hatching builds tone with parallel lines - closer lines mean darker tone - and cross-hatching layers a second direction on top for deeper shadow. Stippling uses dots, and blending smooths graphite or charcoal with a paper stump or finger. Each technique has its own character, so try the same tonal study in all four and notice which suits your style.
Use watercolour washes and wet techniques
Watercolour works from light to dark, because the white of the paper is your lightest tone - plan highlights before you start. A flat wash lays even colour; a graded wash fades from strong to pale; wet-on-wet drops colour into damp paper for soft blooms, while wet-on-dry keeps edges crisp. Let layers dry before glazing over them, and the colours stay clean.
Compare acrylic and oil paint, and use impasto and glazing
Acrylic dries fast, mixes with water and suits bold layered work; oil dries slowly, which allows soft blending over days but demands patience. Impasto applies paint thickly - sometimes with a palette knife - so the marks stand off the surface, as in Van Gogh's skies. Glazing is the opposite: thin transparent layers over dry paint that build glowing depth.
Mix colour deliberately rather than straight from the tube
Mixing your own colours gives work harmony that tube colours rarely have. Neutralise a colour with a touch of its complementary - a little green calms a too-bright red - and darken with a deep colour rather than pure black, which can deaden a mixture. Keeping a small mixing chart in your sketchbook records recipes you will want again.
Make prints: lino cut, monoprint and screen printing
Lino printing carves a design into a lino block, remembering the image prints in reverse and the carved areas stay paper-coloured; multiple colours come from reduction printing, cutting more away between layers. Monoprinting makes one-off prints by drawing into or onto inked surfaces. Screen printing pushes ink through a stencilled mesh - the technique behind Warhol's bold flat colour.
Combine materials in collage, mixed media and textiles
Collage builds images from cut or torn paper, photographs and found materials - Matisse spent his late career "painting with scissors". Mixed media layers any combination: paint over collage, stitch over print, ink over tissue. Textile techniques such as appliqué, embroidery, weaving and batik bring surface, colour and pattern together in fabric.
Work in three dimensions: clay, carving, casting and construction
Clay can be pinched, coiled or built from slabs, then dried and fired in a kiln to make it permanent; joins need scoring and slip to hold. Carving removes material from wood, stone or plaster - subtractive, so plan before you cut. Casting pours material into a mould, and larger built sculptures often start with an armature, a hidden skeleton that supports the form.
Use digital tools as an art medium
Digital work is a medium in its own right: photography, image editing, digital painting on a tablet, and layout design all appear in GCSE portfolios. Layers let you experiment without losing earlier versions - a huge advantage for refining ideas. Digital and traditional media also combine well: scan a drawing, then develop it with digital colour.
Work safely in the studio
Every medium has its safety habits: ventilate when using spray fixative or solvents, cut lino with the blade moving away from your hand and a bench hook holding the block, tie back hair near the kiln, and wash up after handling clay dust or chemicals. Knowing the safe way to use a process is part of mastering it - and keeps the making enjoyable.
Practice
Try a Media & techniques question
A GCSE-style original question from this topic. Have a go before you open the working - deciding on an answer first is what makes the working stick.
In lino (relief) printing, what happens to the areas of the block that you carve away?
- They stay the colour of the paper because they receive no ink
- They print as the darkest areas, because the cut grooves hold the ink just as an etched plate does
- They print as a second colour
- They hold the most ink
Show the answer and the working
Answer: They stay the colour of the paper because they receive no ink
In relief printing the roller only inks the raised surface - carved-away areas sit below the roller, take no ink, and print as blank paper.
- Lino is a relief process: ink is rolled over the top surface of the block.
- Carved channels sit below that surface, so the roller passes over them without touching.
- With no ink in them, those areas leave the paper untouched - they stay paper-coloured.