Artistic Media: Build Your Skills
For many hundreds of years people all over the world have been using a cooking vessel that since 1710 we call a Dutch Oven. It is simply a cast iron pot with a tightly fitting lid . With this versatile cooking utensil a cook can bake, boil, stew, fry or roast. Now imagine how much more a cook could do if in addition to the Dutch Oven he/she were introduced to a fry pan, a charcoal grill, a wok, range, microwave, convection oven etc. and etc. With these additional utensils and methods a cook could then decide which of the many alternatives would best for the food about to be prepared.
It is no different with artwork and your medium. You can do just about any subject with any medium but certain media suit themselves better for certain subjects.
Let’s say, for example, that you are a pen and ink artist. Certainly the beautiful crosshatched, stippled and infinite variety of line patterns in a well done pen and ink can rightly be pushed to handle any subject. But if your subject is a fall pastoral scene perhaps the softness of the clouds and warmth of the scene might better be re-presented in pastel, watercolor or oil. But what if you are only confident when using pen and ink. Likewise what if the subject is a political cartoon and your best medium is oils or acrylics?
It is for this reason that I encourage all my students to learn all the media so that when that commission or simple request for your talent does come you can professionally answer the call in the medium that best suits the project.
