My favourite art mediums

Art is so much more than paint and some of these art mediums were a real surprise to me! Some I loved immediately, like watercolour, others it took me a while, especially the messy ones, particularly charcoal and soft pastels.

Watercolour

Watercolour was the first paint medium I tried, when I decided to try painting. It felt less scary than oil or acrylic paint. We often think of watercolour as being pale pastel shades, but it can be very vibrant and colourful.

Oil Paint

Oil paint is a interesting substance. It is very slow drying ( compared to watercolour or acrylic ) and it can take a month or so for a painting to dry. The texture you can achieve in a painting is almost 3D.

Charcoal

Working with charcoal is VERY messy, when I do it! The joy of charcoal is that the more you put down on the paper, the greater the scope to get a huge range of shades from very black, through greys to white .

Soft Pastels

Like charcoal, soft pastels are another messy medium to work in, but the sumptuous colours you have available more than make up for the messy fingers.

Lino-cuts

Lino-cutting was introduced to me by my son, who showed me how to do it. He did spend a lot of time saying 'Cut away from yourself Mum!' But I now love it, and have suffered no lasting damage from cuts.

Stitching

My mum's beautiful old Singer sewing machine gave me confidence to add some stitches to my artworks. It does not do fancy, but the best straight line of stitches you have ever seen!

Sharon Semple

Artist and Crafter