Exploring Different Media In Art + Three Videos
Do you ever get an itch to set your acrylics aside and try out another art medium?
An “art medium” or “media” is simply a tool used to create art with. Examples of media include: acrylic paints, oil paints, color pencils, chalk pastels, oil pastels, watercolor, pen and ink, collage, sculpture, wood burning and the list goes on!
If you’ve defined yourself as an acrylic paint artist, there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying out a new medium. In fact, many of the Master Artists did this!
Pablo Picasso, for example, worked with all kinds of mediums such as sculptures, collages, pastels and painting!
Examples of mediums to try
Back in January of 2020, I had the opportunity to create some sponsored educational videos for Royal & Langnickel Art. I created a few acrylic painting videos, however, I also created some with other media.
This was SO MUCH FUN!
It allowed me to re-explore some media I had not tried in years! I was also in a creative funk at the time. For some reason this happens to me every year right after Christmas.
By exploring those mediums, re-learning how to use them, I was about to get back in a creative vibe again!
You can see videos below of three different medium demonstrations for your own inspiration:
Chalk Pastels
Materials Used In This Drawing
- Royal And Langnickel Essentials Soft Chalk Pastels
- Pastels Artist Pad
- Masking Tape (helps to hold your drawing down and create a nice border)
Oil Pastels
Materials Used In This Drawing
Color Pencil
Materials Used
- Royal and Langnickel Essentials Color Pencil
- Pastel Artist Pad Paper (I love the “tooth” in this paper and it’s GREAT with color pencils)
Here are reasons why you should try out a new medium soon!
1. Trying A New Medium Inspires New Creativity!
Do you ever NOT feel like painting? Or do you feel like painting but nothing creative pours out?
For me this feeling can last a long time and it’s a hard status to be stuck in.
One way to get out of this “funk” is to grab a different art tool and just start “experimenting” with it. If you have an art journal or sketchbook (highly recommend you have one) do a session with that tool and see what happens! I use this mixed media pad to dabble all my ideas in.
Embrace the different effects the medium creates. If you need a little extra instruction, jump on YouTube or do a quick google search and watch some artists use those mediums. You may even be inspired to learn and master it further.
A word of warning though, don’t get frustrated with this new medium and expect to master it in one session. Remember, it’s new! And the novelty of it may be what you need to get your creative sparks flying again.
2. New Challenges & New Perspectives
No matter where you are on your artistic journey, there is always something new to learn! Trying out a new medium will give you that extra edge of new challenges for your art.
And you can still use an acrylic painting tutorial for that other medium!
Just the other day, I got an email from someone that did the Sunset Pier Painting in all chalk pastels. She thanked me and told me the step by step process pictures helped her with creating the scene with chalk pastels. It was her first chalk pastel painting and it was gorgeous!
3. May Help You Understand Acrylics (or other media) Better
When I was in Junior High, I took Spanish as an elective. I loved it! I thought it was so interesting learning a new language. I took two more years of Spanish in High School and wish I continued on with it enough to become fluent (which I’m not).
Learning Spanish helped me understand my first language better because I learned a lot about where certain words derived from, sentence structure, vocabulary, etc.
You know exactly where I’m going with this… Learning a new medium is much like learning a second language. For me, learning color pencils helped me learn how to blend acrylics better. The process of creating a gradient with color pencils is easy but that same skill is applied when you blend paints together.
There are a lot of skills with watercolor that cross over into acrylic painting such as color mixing, brush control and layering!
Also, I once took a Sumi-E painting class back in college. If you REALLY want to learn about brush control and different paint strokes, I would highly recommend you look up this technique!
This list can go on for every medium!
4. You can mix mediums together
Mixed media! It’s huge right now!
Nobody said you have to only use one medium for an art piece. You can combine any combination of media together.
Perhaps there is something you want to express in your acrylic painting but the acrylics just aren’t doing what you envisioned. You can use another medium, such as a color pencil for detail work, to add to your painting.
Sometimes media react to each other. For example, when you apply oil pastels and then water color over them, the watercolor will resist the pastels creating a unique effect.
There is a TON to be explored with mixing media together.
In Conclusion…
If you’re itching to try new media, I say go for it!
Comment on this post if you have experience exploring new mediums! Did it help you grow as an artist? What mediums would you like to try?
Tracie, Thank you for being a good step by step instructor,and having patients with new beginners. I’ve just been at the acrylic painting for 6 months. I really have a problem with trying to do different flowers. The peddles just want do for me.It could be my age,ha. I’m just 80 years old. I love painting old barns and churches. Sorry to so long wended.
Thanks Violet! I used to struggle SO MUCH with flowers! ? But it gets easier the more you keep practicing!
thank you so much for the inspiration to just get started. My daughter asked me to bring her a painting of a Toucan from Costa Rica… I have dabbled a bit with oils, acrylics and water… It is a gift for her birthday today… I opened up your page with all of these great ideas and decided I can do this. I will paint this picture for her… now I am inspired and feeling a little out of my league but looking forward to that hardest part… getting started.