Catch phrase to refer to a branch of the arts that is experienced primarily through sight alone.

Typically includes, but is not limited to:

Typically excludes the following arts with visual elements, prefering to label these performance art:

(Nodeshell Recovery)

The Many Faces of Paint

My experience with the worlds of brush and ink, watercolor, tempera, acrylic, and oil painting was an inefficacious amalgam of short-lived experimental episodes. Here are the results.


My peregrination began with brush and ink. Brush and ink consisted of a very simple congeries of tools. Primarily brush, ink, and water. Such an assortment seemed to yield monotonous results originally, but soon stemmed alternate paths of utility. Applying water to the paper before painting with the ink, for instance, created an interesting effect reminiscent of the tie dye genre. My favorite diversions were probably brush and ink creations, as such art didn't require the cumbersome predicament of choosing and mixing colors.

The next medium was that of watercolors. The medium was simplistic in nature compared to what would follow, but nevertheless proved a challenge what with it's multiplicity of colors, shades, water stains, and especially the practical impossibility of obtaining a significantly dark stain on the paper. Presented with such a relatively complex task, I made a calculated decision to sacrifice some decorum by painting almost excessively light pictures. Although this compromised their coherence when viewed from a distance, I was able to focus more on the soul of the picture itself without being plagued by the water stains that would afflict a multi-layered painting.

After a short sempiternity in watercolors, the class moved on to the intriguing tempera and acrylic mediums. In my own account, tempera and acrylic are practicably interchangeable agents. Much thicker than watercolors, and consequently darker, I was moved to harmlessly, yet unnecessarily apply water to the paint. In this way, I was able to familiarize myself with the substance at my own pace. After a short interval of post-watercolor withdrawal, I was able to entirely relinquish my need for water as a thinning agent, resulting in one of the pieces I presented for the art show: Incarnadine.

Our terminal medium was none other than that of the oil paints. By far the most mephitic of the paints we experienced, it was nonetheless relatively facile to pick up after my experience with acrylics. What was less pragmatic was the ordeal of hand-making a canvas on which to use the oil paints. After a few days of hebetudinous wood-working, however, I was prepared to begin work with it.

What first struck me as I spread a sizable clump of the paint on my canvas was its almost obscenely viscous nature. A single stroke had covered little more than a square inch of space, and I had much more to cover in a short amount of time. Of course, the residue that remained on the brush after the initial palpation was good for tracing out a light, smoky trail of color, but nothing close to the desired effect I had formerly imagined. I would need either a lot of paint, or a thinning substance. Water being of little avail, I quickly turned with some interest to the provided linseed oil, and found it a rather effective remedy to my dilemma.

Overall, my experiences with painting can be positively described as illuminating. Over the last semester, I have incrementally increased my knowledge of paint, painting styles, and techniques associated with preparing paints and the canvas, which is the best I could have rationally hoped for, given my unostentatious predisposition for the process itself.

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