Painting techniques and media help artists choose the right tools, surfaces, and processes for a finished artwork. This cheat sheet gives students a quick reference for common methods such as washes, glazing, blending, dry brush, impasto, and underpainting. It is useful for planning studio work, comparing paint types, and solving problems during a project.
Students can use it to make stronger choices about color, texture, depth, and visual style.
The most important ideas are control of paint thickness, water or medium amount, brush pressure, drying time, and layering order. Basic painting formulas include wash = pigment + lots of water, glaze = transparent color + dry layer underneath, and tint = color + white. Different media behave differently, so watercolor, acrylic, oil, tempera, and gouache each need different handling.
Strong paintings usually combine careful preparation, planned values, intentional color mixing, and varied marks.
Key Facts
- A wash is made with pigment + lots of water or medium, creating a thin, transparent layer of color.
- A glaze is transparent color painted over a dry layer, so the formula is glaze = thin transparent paint + dry underlayer.
- A tint is made by mixing a color with white, while a shade is made by mixing a color with black.
- A tone is made by mixing a color with gray or its complement to reduce brightness.
- Dry brush uses very little paint and a mostly dry brush to create broken texture and visible strokes.
- Impasto uses thick paint applied with a brush or palette knife so the surface has raised texture.
- Underpainting is a first layer that maps values, composition, or color temperature before final layers are added.
- Acrylic dries quickly and cleans with water, watercolor stays transparent, oil dries slowly, gouache is opaque, and tempera dries matte.
Vocabulary
- Medium
- A medium is the type of paint or material used to create an artwork, such as watercolor, acrylic, oil, gouache, or tempera.
- Value
- Value is how light or dark a color appears, from white through gray to black.
- Opacity
- Opacity describes how much a paint covers what is underneath it, from transparent to fully covering.
- Layering
- Layering is the process of building an image with multiple coats of paint, usually from background or base colors toward details.
- Blending
- Blending is smoothing two or more colors or values together so the transition looks gradual.
- Texture
- Texture is the real or visual surface quality of a painting, such as smooth, rough, thick, scratched, or streaked.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Using too much water with acrylic paint, which weakens coverage and can make colors look streaky. Add water slowly or use acrylic medium when you need smoother flow.
- Painting a glaze over a wet layer, which mixes the colors instead of creating a transparent layer. Let the first layer dry fully before glazing.
- Mixing too many colors at once, which often creates muddy browns or grays. Start with two colors, then adjust with small amounts of a third color if needed.
- Ignoring value before color, which can make a painting look flat even if the colors are bright. Plan light, middle, and dark areas before adding final color details.
- Using the same brushstroke everywhere, which makes the surface feel repetitive and less expressive. Vary brush size, direction, pressure, and paint thickness to support the subject.
Practice Questions
- 1 You mix blue paint with white paint. What color relationship have you created, and what is the formula for it?
- 2 A student wants a transparent blue layer over a dry yellow background. Which technique should they use, and what must happen before applying it?
- 3 You have 5 brushes and want to test 3 techniques with each brush: dry brush, wash, and blending. How many total technique tests will you make?
- 4 Which paint medium would be better for building thick raised texture, watercolor or acrylic, and why?