The 11 Different Visual Art Media

No, we don’t forget the humble pencil. Unless your parents gave you pen to write your first letters with, you sure would be playing with this art material first. You made your first stick figures with a pencil, your first rudimentary house with this art medium, and the cloud-like trees likewise in the same drawing medium. Very affordable and easy to work with, pencils are used as medium in art by, not just children, but professional artists as well, including police sketch artists. Pencil also complements other mediums in art, especially paint mediums, as light and erasable pencil is used to make rough sketch on paper or canvas before the actual paint is applied.

Charcoal is like graphite pencil, only freer and comes in more variety. Charcoal is not limited in pencil form; the art medium is also available in whole sticks and powder. Crucial in using this material in art is the rubber putty, which would be the eraser to your pencil. You don’t just draw with charcoal; you erase too. Erasing is part of the art. You rub this drawing medium on paper when you want black, and the rubber putty when you need whites and highlights. Of course if you want more colors beside black or white, you’d have to check the next art media.

They’re flashy, they’re fancy; oh look, they come in expensive-looking plastic pens — and their inks are fluorescent! Wait till they get wet, however, and the colors seep away. Colors pens are a good medium for art, especially to parents who are tired of washing color stains off children clothes; but if you want your drawings to last through a rainy season, please consider another art medium, like the next one.

I loved this art medium. Oil pastels are like crayons, but softer and can be easily blended together. Compared to colored pencils, crayons or color pens, oil pastels are the drawing medium used more often by professional artists. There is another kind of pastel that’s definitely worth considering.

Ah, the water-based art medium. Relatively cheaper, watercolor’s outcome tends to be more realistic than other painting media. This is so because, in addition to the lightness (affected by adding white) or darkness (by adding black), you can control the intensity of the painting medium by adding water. Less water means more transparent hue, and more water means stronger hue. Always you’d have to add water though, however small: there’s reason why this material in painting is called watercolor. While the art material lends itself better to realism, watercolor is less durable than our next painting mediums.

Acrylic and I had a good relationship. This art medium is water-based, so strong and intense, and yet so easy to wash off. Acrylic as a medium of painting is like watercolor and oil combined. Like oil, the finished acrylic work would still be a lot more opaque than water color, but without the hassle of having to dissolve poisonous paint from hands and rugs with turpentine afterward. Acrylic is a durable painting medium, though it doesn’t last as long as oil.