M6-Overview & Objectives

Module 6 – Two-Dimensional Media

OVERVIEW
Artists find ways to express themselves with almost anything available. It is a stamp of
their creativity to make extraordinary images and objects from various but fairly ordinary
materials. From charcoal, paper and thread to paint, ink and found objects like leaves,
artists continue to search for ways to construct and deliver their message.
This module explores traditional and non-traditional mediums associated with two-
dimensional artworks including:
 Drawing
 Painting
 Printmaking
 Collage
Two-dimensional media are grouped into general categories. Let’s look at each group to
understand their particular qualities and how artists use them.

OBJECTIVES
Upon completing this module, students should be able to:
• Identify and describe specific characteristics of two-dimensional mediums artist
use.
• Describe how time-based mediums affect issues of content.
• Explain and demonstrate how collage has a significant role in the development of
modern art.
• Discuss how the advance of technology is reflected in the art historical record.
• Describe how cultural styles are influenced through the use of different artistic
mediums.

M6-Drawing
DRAWING

Drawing is the simplest and most efficient way to communicate visual ideas, and for
centuries charcoal, chalk, graphite and paper have been adequate enough tools to launch
some of the most profound) images in art.
Types of Drawing Media
 Dry Media
 Graphite
 Charcoal
 Pastels
Wet media (ink, felt tip)

M6-Painting
PAINTING

Painting is the application of pigments to a support surface that establishes an image,

design or decoration. In art the term ‘painting’ describes both the act and the result. Most
painting is created with pigment in liquid form and applied with a brush.
There are six major painting mediums, each with specific individual characteristics:
 Encaustic
 Tempera
 Fresco
 Oil
 Acrylic
 Watercolor
All of them use three basic ingredients:
 Pigment
 Binder
  Solvent
Other painting mediums
 Enamel
 Powder coat
 Epoxy

M6-Printmaking
PRINTMAKING

Printmaking uses a transfer process to make multiples from an original image or

template. The multiple images are printed in an edition, with each print signed and
numbered by the artist. All printmaking mediums result in images reversed from the
original. Print results depend on how the template (or matrix) is prepared. There are three
basic techniques of printmaking: Relief, Intaglio and Planar.

Lithography is another example of planar printmaking, developed in Germany in the late

18th century. “Litho” means “stone” and “graph” means “to draw”. The traditional matrix
for lithography is the smooth surface of a limestone block.

Serigraphy, also known as Screen-printing, is a third type of planar printing medium.

Screen-printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-
blocking stencil).

M6-Collage
COLLAGE

Collage is a medium that uses found objects or images such as newspaper or other printed
material, illustrations, photographs, even string or fabric, to create images. It also refers
to works of art (paintings, drawings and prints) that include pieces of collage within
them.
 M7-Overview & Objectives
Module 7 - The Camera Arts
OVERVIEW
This module provides an overview of the camera arts and how they’re used. They
include:
 Film photography
 Photography’s impact on traditional media
 Issues of Form and Content
 Darkroom Processes
 The Human Element
 Color Images
 Photojournalism
 Modern Developments
 Digital photography
Time based mediums including motion pictures, video, digital streaming images
The invention of the camera and its ability to capture an image with light became the first
“high tech” artistic medium of the Industrial Age. Developed during the middle of the
nineteenth century, the photographic process changed forever our physical perception of
the world and created an uneasy but important relationship between the photograph and
other more traditional artistic media.

OBJECTIVES
Upon successful completion of this module, you should be able to:
• Explain the effect photography has on traditional artistic media.
• Communicate how time-based mediums affect issues of content.
• Compare and contrast different photographic processes.
• Recognize and explain issues of form and content in photographs.
• Explain the three elements of photojournalism.
• Describe the effects photojournalism has on the news media.

M7-Early Development
EARLY DEVELOPMENT

The first attempts to capture an image were made from a camera obscura used since the
16th century. The device consists of a box or small room with a small hole in one side that
acts as a lens. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes the
opposite surface inside where it is reproduced upside-down, but with color
and perspective) preserved.

M7-Impact on Other Media

IMPACT ON OTHER MEDIA

The advent of photography caused a realignment in the use of other two-dimensional

media. The photograph was now in direct competition with drawing, painting and
printmaking. The camera turns its gaze on the human narrative that stands before it. The
photograph gave (for the most part), a realistic and unedited view of our world. It offered
a more “true” image of nature because it’s manifest in light, not by the subjective hand
and mind of the artist in their studio, which, depending on the style used, is open to
manipulation. Its use as a tool for documentation was immediate, which gave the photo a
scientific role to play.

M7-Form & Content

FORM & CONTENT

The darkroom became the studio of the photographer. It was there where visual ideas
translated into images: an opportunity to manipulate the film negative, to explore
techniques and discover the potential the photograph had in interpreting objects and
ideas.

M7-The Human Element

THE HUMAN ELEMENT

Photography became the most contemporary of artistic media, one particularly suited to
record the human dramas being played out in an increasingly modern world.

M7-Color Images
COLOR IMAGES

The wider use of color film after 1935 added another dimension to photography. Color
can give a stronger sense of reality: the photo looks much like the way we actually see the
scene with our eyes. Moreover, the use of color affects the viewer’s perception,
triggering memory and reinforcing visual details. Photographers can manipulate color and
its effects either before or after the picture is taken.

M7-Photojournalism
PHOTOJOURNALISM

The news industry was fundamentally changed with the invention of the photograph.
Although pictures were taken of newsworthy stories as early as the 1850’s, the
photograph needed to be translated into an engraving before being printed in a
newspaper. It wasn’t until the turn of the nineteenth century that newspaper presses could
copy original photographs. Photos from around the world showed up on front pages of
newspapers defining and illustrating stories, and the world became smaller as this early
mass medium gave people access to up-to-date information…with pictures!

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism) that creates images in order to tell a

news story and is defined by these three elements:
 Timeliness
 Objectivity
 Narrative

M7-Modern Developments
MODERN DEVELOPMENTS

Edwin Land) invented the instant camera, capable of taking and developing a
photograph, in 1947, followed by the popular SX-70 instant camera in 1972. The SX-70
produced a 3” square-format positive image that developed in front of your eyes. The
beauty of instant development for the artist was that during the two or three minutes it
took for the image to appear, the film emulsion stayed malleable and able to manipulate.

M7-Time Based Media: Film, Video, Digital

TIME BASED MEDIA: FILM, VIDEO, DIGITAL

With traditional film, what we see as a continuous moving image is actually a linear
progression of still photos on a single reel that pass through a lens at a certain rate of
speed and are projected onto a screen. We saw a simple form of this process earlier in the
pioneering work of Eadweard Muybridge.
 ACTIVITY #2

Directions: Describe art in artistic way. Make a drawing or painting to

express your thoughts.